Former White Hart Hotel

FORMER WHITE HART HOTEL, MARKET PLACE, NEWARK ON TRENT

A former hotel, now a building society office, on the south side of Market Place. The building comprises multiple ranges of varying dates, established through dendrochronological analysis: the rear (south) wing dates from around 1312, extended around 1526 and remodelled in the 17th century; the east wing from around 1320; and the front range from around 1470. A rear gallery and stair turret were added in the early 16th century, with glazing carried out in the mid-17th century. The structure was altered around 1870 and underwent significant restoration in 1983 and 1990 (by Guy St John Taylor Associates).

The building is constructed with timber framing, rendered rubble and brick nogging, under pantile roofs with plain tile verges. The close-studded front range rises to 3 storeys across 4 bays. The left bay is recessed and unjettied, featuring a 16-pane sash window. The 3 bays to the right are jettied and have continuous windows with wooden traceried heads. Above each billeted bressummer are plaster figures with crocketed canopies attached to each stud. The ground floor contains an open carriageway, flanked to the right by a 20th-century shopfront with 2 windows. Above the carriageway at the rear is a 2-bay jettied glazed gallery with turned mullions.

The south wing comprises two ranges. The right-hand range, dating from the 14th century and formerly an open hall, is 4 bays wide and 2 storeys with attics. It has a colourwashed brick underbuild with close studding above and render. The left-hand range, of similar character but from the early 16th century, is 2 storeys with attics, 5 bays wide, and has a coped gable. Both ranges have scattered fenestration, predominantly from the 19th and 20th centuries.

The east wing, formerly a first-floor hall, is 2 storeys and 4 bays, with a gable stack. It has a painted brick underbuild with rendered timber framing above. Two 12-pane sashes appear on each floor, with those below being smaller. The 2 right-hand bays have a lower pitched roof and form part of the adjoining 19th-century public house, whose main range now conceals them. A 3-storey stair turret occupies the return angle, with 20th-century brick underbuild and arch-braced close studding above. The upper floors have a continuous window on each side, of 6 and 7 lights respectively, with those facing the carriageway featuring 17th-century turned balusters.

Internally, the south wing at its north end retains the upper parts of jowled posts, a collar beam, and substantial remains of a collar-purlin roof. The 5 bays to the south have some wall studs and largely a 19th-century roof. The east wing contains a framed gable and 2 trusses with arch braces; the two western bays have a restored collar-purlin roof. The front range's first floor features chamfered spine and span beams and a central stud wall with 20th-century screens in the other bays. The 2 western bays retain wall painting. The second floor has stud walls, some with arch braces, and chamfered span beams with arch braces, except in the eastern bay. A single-purlin roof with wind braces runs across, except in the eastern bay. The stair turret has a single-purlin roof and patterned framing in the gable.

The building functioned as an inn from around 1430 until around 1870, when it was converted to a shop. Nikolaus Pevsner described it as "one of the paramount examples of late 15th-century timber-framed architecture in England".