Hope End Hotel

The Hope End Hotel is a mid-18th century stable block, later adapted for use as a hotel. It was altered in the early 19th century (1810-c1820), the mid-19th century, and the mid-20th century. The building is constructed of brick with a hipped slate roof concealed behind a parapet. Rendered turrets are located at each corner, with a brick end stack to the left and another over the centre. The original layout, dividing the building into stabling, a grooms' room, and a carriage house, remains visible. The south front has two storeys and seven plus one windows. It features 12-pane glazing bar sash windows on the ground floor and 6-pane windows on the upper floor. A stone round-arched entrance, dating from the mid-18th century, is situated under the fourth window from the left, with a second entrance beneath the right-hand window; both entrances now have 20th-century doors. The east front is rendered and has six windows with mid-19th century cross-sashes. Inside, a central part features an austere cantilevered dog-leg stone staircase with stick balusters. The former carriage house contains a hand-cut, re-used tie-beam supporting a king-post. The south front has been given an 18th-century appearance in recent times. The turrets, which previously supported narrower drums and ball finials, and were described as minarets, are believed to be of London origin. The hotel has group value with a stableyard gateway, a minaret, and a boundary wall. Elizabeth Barrett-Browning lived at the property from 1809-10, at the age of three, until her father, E Moulton-Barrett, sold Hope End in 1832. Moulton-Barrett had accumulated a fortune from plantations in Jamaica; the eccentric Moorish atmosphere of the building influenced his daughter's writing, such as The Lost Bower. The original house lay immediately south-east and was demolished in the 1870s. Its landscape setting was likely influenced by Moulton-Barrett’s association with Uvedale Price at nearby Foxley, and thus with the Picturesque style.