Booth Hall Hotel

The Booth Hall Hotel comprises a 15th-century wing with 18th- and 19th-century additions and alterations. The building is constructed of painted brick with a hipped composite tile roof, featuring two brick ridge stacks and a brick stack to the front. The main facade has three stories and a cellar, with a five-window range of 6/6 and 1, 8/8 sash windows under segmental arches, and a parapet. The central right entrance features a late 19th-century two-leaf, four-panel door with a lattice-glazed overlight within a moulded architrave under a moulded hood on scrolled consoles. A further 8/8 sash window is to the right, with two 6/6 sashes and a part-glazed door to the left, all under segmental arches, and a storeyband. The left returned side has two early 20th-century 6/6 sashes on the first and second floors, a similar sash and a blocked opening to the ground floor, all under segmental arches, with a returned storeyband. A timber-framed wing with a plain tile roof and a 20th-century rear stack adjoins the main building to the right.

The interior of the first-floor hall retains a remarkable timber roof dating back to the 15th century, with cusped quatrefoil windbraces, a hammerbeam construction, carved spandrels, and figureheads. There is also a pierced and moulded screen. Victorian Gothic features include screens, a balcony, doors, panelling, a fireplace with an overmantel, leaded lights and a staircase.

The hall is believed to have been built between 1380 and 1400, and is mentioned in a deed of 1392. It was acquired by the City to provide a venue for legal proceedings and served as a Guild Room for the Mercers Company from the 16th century until at least 1756. The basement was previously used as a prison for freemen. The building was converted into an inn at the end of the 18th or the beginning of the 19th century. The Great Room was obscured by later alterations, but its carved roof was rediscovered in 1919 after a chimney collapsed. A former landlord is referenced in Borrow's Lavengro.