The Lion Hotel

The Lion Hotel comprises three buildings, with its earliest section dating to the late 15th century, altered in the early 19th century. The other buildings were constructed in the late 18th century. The oldest building is rendered over timber framing and has a plain tiled roof. The remaining buildings are of brick, with roofs hidden behind parapets.

The central building is three storeys high and has a two-window front. 20th-century tripartite sash windows with traceried glazing echo the design of the original upper windows. Projecting outer bays on the first floor feature traceried tripartite sashes linked by a balcony with paired cusped arches.

The main block, built as a hotel in the late 18th century, possibly incorporates an earlier structure. It is four storeys high and six windows wide. The ground floor is painted brick, with a central door framed by Doric columns and an entablature supporting a statue of a lion, flanked by twelve-pane sash windows. A carriage entry is on the right. Upper windows are also twelve-pane sashes with flat-arched gauged brick heads, with six panes to the attic. The central windows have moulded stone architraves. A plain parapet runs along the eaves. A rear wing with a bowed gable end and round-arched windows houses a ballroom and a music room. The parapet features a stone panel with a mutilated coat of arms and formerly supported a carved lion by John Nelson of Shrewsbury, created in 1777.

A lower block, incorporated into the hotel around 1800, is two storeys high and four windows wide. It has painted brick on the lower storey. A doorway with an open pediment is on the right, and three windows with traceried glazing are recessed within a round-arched arcade. The upper windows are twelve-pane sashes with flat-arched gauged brick heads. A moulded cornice sits above the parapet eaves, and gable end stacks are present.

The interior of the central section reveals exposed timber framing. The ballroom, located on the ground floor of the rear wing, incorporates dado panelling and plasterwork panels between windows. The music room above features elaborate decorative plasterwork in the Adam style, with low-relief swags and musical emblems. The room has paired marble fireplaces and a partitioned balcony originally supported by polished marble columns. The open hall in the front block is an early 20th-century addition, potentially based on an earlier structure. It has a wide, segmentally-arched stone fireplace with quatrefoil timber panels in the hood, and leaded lights incorporating armorial stained glass panels.

The hotel has a significant historical context, being closely associated with the London-Holyhead mail coaches and frequented by notable figures such as Dickens, De Quincey, Paganini, and Jenny Lind.