Former White Horse Hotel

This is an 18th-century inn with an attached earlier cruck building and subsequent modifications, located on the north side of High Street in Wem.

Construction and Materials

The building is constructed largely of brick with the remains of an earlier timber structure within and a timber roof structure. The roofs are covered in slate.

Plan and Layout

The main range is three bays wide and rectangular in plan. Attached to the rear is a long two-storey single-depth range that has been partly widened to the left.

Exterior

The main range is three storeys and three bays wide, rendered in finish. It features a central moulded doorcase and a porch with Tuscan columns and entablature. The ground floor has two twelve-pane sash windows to the left and a large tripartite sash window to the right. The first floor has a 19th-century left-hand bay window, with simple sash windows on the remaining first and second floors.

The east flank wall has two storey bands and is attached to a later widened portion of the rear range, with a variety of window openings and a doorway serving the lounge bar. The west flank of the rear range displays an exposed timber frame with brick infill panels. A 19th-century red brick and sandstone range to the north is much altered and of lesser interest. A tall garden wall of sandstone blocks is attached to the rear.

Interior

The ground floor contains five principal bar areas with 18th-century beams in the range fronting the road. The rear wing contains earlier beams and joists, probably of 17th-century date. A 20th-century servery occupies the left side, with late-18th-century dado panelling in the bar area, which may have been relocated from elsewhere.

The first floor of the main range features chamfered and stopped 18th-century beams, with three cruck trusses to the second floor. Some early stud partitioning survives on the second floor. The stairwell contains an early window with a deep reveal and a small section of 18th-century stair balustrade.

The ground floor of the early rear range has a brick inglenook with bressummer. On the first floor is an encased cruck truss at the north end with early roof structure above.

Historical Development

The former White Horse Hotel served as an inn from at least the 18th century, ideally positioned to serve passing carriage traffic on the main road through the centre of town. The main range probably dates from the early 18th century, although some of the roof structure is earlier. The rear wing is partly of post-medieval date but has since been adapted and extended. It stands on the line of a medieval tenement plot, part of the early settlement pattern of central Wem near the former castle site.

A much-altered Unitarian Meeting House stands just to the north. The Unitarians were an active non-conformist presence in Shropshire and Staffordshire in the early 18th century. The meeting house adjoins a manse at No. 17 Noble Street (listed Grade II*), the home of William Hazlitt (1737-1820), who preached at the meeting house between 1788 and 1813. His son, the essayist William Hazlitt (1778-1830), lived in the house until 1799. Records state the meeting house was built in 1716 in "Sarah Thornhill's garden in Noble Street."

The White Horse was successively adapted through the 18th and 19th centuries. In the Jubilee Year of 1887 it was substantially enlarged to the rear. The building continued to serve as a hotel into the 21st century and was undergoing conversion for residential and office use from 2010.