Corbet Arms Hotel

The Corbet Arms Hotel is an inn of late 18th and early 19th-century date, constructed of red brick with plain tile roofs, situated on the north-east side of the High Street in Market Drayton.

The building comprises three principal elements: a front range split into two distinct blocks, with an early 19th-century ballroom block adjoining at the rear.

The left-hand block of the front range dates to the early 19th century and rises three storeys. It features a dentil brick eaves cornice and a 20th-century parapeted gable end to the left with stone coping. Brick ridge and end stacks are integral to the structure. The façade presents three windows; the main windows are tripartite sashes with gauged-brick heads and painted stone cills, whilst the second-floor fenestration comprises casements. The entrance is positioned between the first and second windows from the right, consisting of a pair of doors with three beaded flush panels (the top panels glazed), beaded flush-panelled reveals, and a rectangular overlight with radial fan detail. The surround features a reeded architrave with circular corner paterae, frieze, and moulded cornice. A Tuscan porch with granite columns (probably a mid-to late 19th-century replacement) supports a frieze and triangular pediment with blocking course. An inn sign is mounted above on a wrought-iron bracket. A carriageway to the left has stone hinge blocks, a pair of boarded gates with spearhead tops, and a name board. A blocked former side doorway in the carriageway retains quarter-round unfluted Greek Doric columns supporting a frieze and segmental radial fanlight.

The right-hand block dates to the late 18th century and is two storeys with an attic storey. It displays a painted moulded (probably stone) eaves cornice and parapeted gable ends with chamfered stone copings and moulded stone kneelers. A pair of hipped eaves dormers contain 2-light wooden casements. The four-bay façade features plate-glass sashes with gauged-brick heads and painted stone cills.

Remains of an early 19th-century railed enclosure survive in front of both blocks of the front range, comprising sandstone plinths and four short sections of spearhead railings with urn finials to standards.

The early 19th-century ballroom block adjoins at the rear. Constructed of red brick (painted on the ground floor), it rises two storeys beneath a plain tile roof. A toothed-brick eaves cornice runs across the elevation, with an external brick end stack to the right. The five-bay front includes first-floor glazing bar sashes with painted stone cills and lintels. Ground-floor fenestration consists of a 2-light segmental-headed window in the second bay from the right, an elliptical-arched boarded door to the right, and three pairs of elliptical-arched boarded coach-house doors to the left. A two-storey hipped-roofed stair tower and porch project to the right, topped with a toothed-brick eaves cornice, containing an entrance with a gauged-brick elliptical arch, a pair of beaded flush-panelled doors, and an overlight. A lower one-bay block set back to the left contains a first-floor glazing-bar sash. A two-storey link block connects the ballroom to the front range.

Internally, the hotel contains an early 19th-century cantilevered dog-leg staircase with curving flights, open string, turned balusters (two per tread), and a sweeping handrail with wreathed newel and columnar foot newel post. Doors throughout feature six raised and fielded panels with panelled reveals. The interior of the ballroom was not inspected during the survey, though a moulded cornice was noted.

The porch may originally have featured a baseless Doric order, as early 19th-century pilasters are visible behind the later granite columns, though these pilasters lack bases. A pair of sandstone columns standing on waste ground at the rear of the hotel may represent the former porch columns; their bases are not visible as they are embedded in the earth.