Farmers Arms Hotel Farmer'S Arms Hotel

Farmers' Arms Hotel

A pair of hotels (one formerly The White Cross), now consolidated into a single hotel, dating from around 1900 and altered in the 20th century. The building is possibly designed by Austin and Paley and displays Northern Renaissance styling. It is constructed of sandstone ashlar on the ground and first floors with squared coursed stone above, finished with slate roofs featuring coped gables. The building occupies a corner site at the junction of Aldcliffe Road and Penny Street with a reverse L-shaped plan, incorporating 2 entrances from Penny Street and one from Aldcliffe Road. Chimney stacks are positioned at various points across the structure.

The hotel rises three storeys with 13 bays of irregular width that can be divided into 2 symmetrical blocks. The block at the corner of the two roads is almost symmetrical around a wide diagonal bay with chamfered quoins, a cornice-like band between ground and first floor, and a sill band on the first floor. Above this rises a tall Flemish gable topped by a small scrolled pediment, itself crowned by a ball finial. The pediment is carried by short pilasters flanking a tiny rusticated arch borne on a tapering pilaster. The ground floor of this central bay contains a 7-light mullioned and transomed bow window. The first floor features a cross-window topped by a broken segmental pediment and flanked by 2 single lights with a transom, above an elaborate apron. The second-floor window has been altered by the insertion of a concrete lintel and wooden mullions.

On either side of the central bay are narrow bays with square-headed and keystoned doorways on the ground floor, each set under a segmental pediment and flanked by single windows with a transom. The right-hand doorway is surmounted by a canopy. Cross-windows appear on the first floors, with similar windows on the second floor rising into segmental dormers. Beyond these narrow bays lie wide bays that rise into gables—the right gable being a simpler version of the central one, and the left a much simpler form without the arch and pilaster. The left bay contains 3 ground-floor windows and 2 windows above, mostly with cross mullions. The right bay has 3 ground-floor windows and a single 3-light cross mullion window above.

The right-hand block facing King Street is symmetrical about a wide central bay rising to a gable similar to the right gable of the left block. A very wide entrance on its ground floor (now subdivided into three) is set under a richly moulded flat arch carried on console brackets. The first floor displays a cross-window flanked by single transomed lights with an elaborate apron beneath and a small scrolled pediment above. Rusticated pilasters flank this central bay and are repeated between all windows on the first and second storeys.

This central bay is flanked by 3-bay wings featuring round-headed windows on the ground floor, flanked by short windows under a segmental pediment. These windows probably retain original stained-glass with floral motifs; the 2 windows to the left of the door are labelled 'Commercial Room' and 'Lounge Bar'. The first floor has cross-windows with single transomed windows on either side, while the second floor shows a similar arrangement of windows without transoms.