Former Red Lion inn (104 Abbey Street), including 106 Abbey Street

Former Red Lion Inn (104 Abbey Street) and Innkeeper's House (106 Abbey Street)

A coaching inn and innkeeper's house predating 1815, with an extension of 1822 and refronting before 1844. The buildings are now in use as a shop, offices and stores. They are constructed of buff sandstone with slate and roofing stone.

The buildings occupy a prominent position at the junction of Abbey Street and Black Abbey Street, set back from a row of shops to the south. The plan comprises a double-pile arrangement, with a three-bay inn to the north and a single-bay house to the south, plus a western rear extension to the house.

The east-facing front is built of narrow-coursed, dressed stone. The inn section is two storeys and three bays wide, symmetrical with a central entrance. Alternating quoins mark the angles, and windows have squared stone surrounds. The eaves feature a moulded cornice. The west gable is coped. Ground-floor windows are modern, but first-floor windows are late-19th-century sashes with horns and central upper glazing bars. The entrance has an arched surround with capitals and a keystone bearing an urn in relief; the fanlight and door are replacements. To the right is a two-storey bowed outshut. To the left, separated by a vertical joint, is the innkeeper's house, two storeys plus cellar, constructed of regularly-coursed stone. The moulded eaves cornice matches that of the inn. The top floor has a single opening at the left with wide stone lintel and sill. The middle floor has a paired opening with stone lintel, sill and mullion. The cellar contains a well at the right with steps to a doorway with stone surround, and a low light at the left with stone lintel and sill.

The north wall of the inn is gabled with quoins at the left. At the right is a two-storey bowed outshut with a shallow stone-slate roof and paired windows at each floor, with stone sills, lintels and mullions. The upper windows are six-over-six sashes; the lower windows are replacements. The gable-end has a ground-floor replacement window at the left with stone surround, and an arched entrance abutting the outshut, plainer in design than the front entrance, with the door and fanlight also replaced. Above this are a small first-floor window and larger attic window, both replacements. Set back to the right is the north wall of a single-storey rear outshut with stone eaves-corbels and blocked cellar and ground-floor openings. It has a rock-faced stone plinth and horizontally-tooled upper courses, with chamfered angles and run-out stops.

The west wall is rendered with small patches of random-coursed stone revealed. The first floor has a window at the right in the angle with the Jacob Lang room, with a stair window further to the left. Adjacent is a small first-floor window above a much wider sill, matching that of the right-hand window. A gabled central single-storey outshut to number 104 has a rock-faced stone plinth and horizontally-tooled upper courses, with chamfered angles and run-out stops. It has a single window, partially blocked, with a blocked cellar opening below. The gable is coped with shaped kneelers. Small windows flank the outshut. At ground floor in the angle with the Jacob Lang room is a lean-to stone porch with blind west wall, battered plinth and a north doorway with stone lintel and jambs, blocked with random-coursed stone at low level and breeze-blocks above.

The two-storey Jacob Lang room has a hipped slate roof. Its north wall is partially rendered but built of regularly-coursed, watershot stone. The eaves feature five projecting stone gutter-corbels at the left, those further right being broken off. At first-floor are a single opening at the left with stone sill and modern window, and at the right a doorway partly blocked in stone and partly in brick, with a stone-blocked small opening with stone sill. Above the doorway is a stone plaque inscribed "J & E / Lang / 1822" in good-quality lettering. Below the doorway, angling down to the left, the coursed stone gives way to rubble with a stone-blocked opening and three rendered panels. A ground-floor opening at the left has a modern door, and a rendered opening has a stone sill. The right angle with the west wall is rendered.

The west wall of the Jacob Lang room is largely rendered but with exposed random-coursed walling at the base. Stone gutter-corbels survive, as do stone surrounds to two first-floor and one ground-floor openings, with modern timber windows upstairs and breeze-blocks downstairs. A smaller downstairs window with wider sill is also blocked. The right angle has alternating rock-faced quoins. Rainwater goods are plastic.

The south wall has alternating rock-faced quoins visible at the left. Immediately to their right is a bay walled in breeze-blocks, flanked by breeze-block buttresses and with a modern roller shutter at ground level. A first-floor modern timber window has a stone sill and lintel. To the right is another bay with a partly-rendered brick buttress to its right, mostly rendered but with some random-rubble stone walling visible at first-floor and some random-coursed stone walling at ground level. A breeze-blocked ground-floor window has a stone sill, while a first-floor opening has stone sill and lintel with a modern timber window. The rear outshut of number 108 abuts this wall to the right. Between it and the brick buttress is a stone lintel or sill. The right-hand bays retain surviving stone gutter-corbels.

The ground floor of the inn has been modernised but retains shutters in the bow window. The first floor retains a function room with shaped stone ceiling corbels. The stair window is arched internally. The stair is altered but retains a short length of original balustrade with turned newel, stick balusters and ramped handrail. A similar altered balustrade is found on the closed-string attic stair. The attic retains wide floorboards, lath-and-plaster walls and ceilings, hand-sawn purlins and a ledged plank door. The cellar was not inspected.

Number 106 has been modernised internally. In the Jacob Lang room are historic architraves, door and wall plaster in the cross-passage, but the stair is modern. The ground-floor ceiling beams are historic but the joists and floor are modern. The ground floor retains a niche with damaged stone shelves and a stone stair to the doorway in the angle with number 104. The upper room retains a vaulted plaster ceiling.

At the rear, a stone farmyard gatepost with pointed head abuts the rear wall of number 104. A small area of stone setts abuts the south-west corner of the Jacob Lang room.