Spread Eagle Inn

The Spread Eagle Inn is a building with a late 18th-century front, built on a 17th-century core. It is located on the south side of King Street in Hereford.

The inn is three storeys high with a cellar, and has a three-window front. The windows are early 20th-century sashes with beaded reveals, with 3/6 sashes on the upper floors. There is a moulded coving to the eaves. The front of the inn, dating from the late 19th century, features a central double door with a half-glazed upper section, set within panelled reveals and flanked by plate-glass windows in moulded cases. The doorway is flanked by moulded wooden Ionic pilasters, and has a square-headed courtyard entrance to the right with plain pilasters and a plank door. Above the entrance is a moulded fascia board and a modillioned hood with fluted consoles. A passage to the rear has wood panelling on the right, along with a 6/6 sash and a part-glazed 19th-century panelled door, under a jetty, with a 2/2 sash window above. Segmental arches, storeybands, a 6/6 sash, and a 2-light casement are also present on the rear. The gable of one wing displays 17th-century timber framing with brick infill. A further wing is of 18th-century brickwork with a sillband and a moulded wood 2nd-floor storeyband, covered in roughcast. It has 18th-century 10/10 sashes and various other sashes and casements, segmental arches, a roughcast gable, an 18th-century brick stack, and a shallow-pitched slate roof. Another stable wing has a 20th-century plain tile roof, and a further wing with a steep-pitched corrugated-asbestos roof displays mutilated timber framing.

Inside, a dogleg staircase from the 17th century has turned balusters and a moulded string and newel, though some balusters are missing from the flight to the attic. A rear stair has barley-sugared twist balusters. The attic has exposed purlins, exposed 17th-century box-framing, two 19th-century plank doors, and a queen strut truss. On the second floor, there are five 4-panel doors, a 19th-century six-panel door, and panelled window risers with architraves. The first floor features exposed framing with diagonal braces, potentially belonging to the adjacent number 1 King Street, and chamfered ceiling beams. The ground floor has exposed ceiling joists and beams to the rear range, a 19th-century fireplace with a four-centred arch, a 17th-century panelled dado, a ceiling cornice, and a corner stack. The cellar contains a medieval octagonal pillar and capital below a massive beam, with masonry lining and a stack base, along with a plank door and a pointed arch to a blocked doorhead.