Victoria Hotel

The Victoria Hotel is a house, later adapted as an inn, dating to the early 19th century with a substantial 18th-century core. It is located on the south-west side of High Street, Whitchurch. The building is constructed of red brick, painted to the front, and has a slate roof. It has a roughly L-shaped layout, with a rear assembly room or ballroom.

The main front is three storeys high, featuring a raised eaves band and a thin, moulded wooden cornice to the parapet. There are brick stacks, one integral to the right end and another off-centre to the left. The front has a 1:3 bay arrangement with 16-pane and 12-pane glazing bar sash windows, having painted stone cills and slightly segmental heads. The ground floor features segmental-headed tripartite glazing bar sashes. A pair of late 19th-century doors occupy the second bay from the right; these feature three bolection-moulded panels each, diamond-leaded margin lights, a rectangular overlight, reeded reveals, and a painted stone Ionic doorcase with unfluted columns supporting sections of an entablature, a dentil cornice, and a panelled soffit. A frieze above indicates a former balcony, which was absent during a survey in November 1986. A 19th-century French casement is located above the first-floor window to the right. Decorative wrought-iron pentices cover the ground-floor windows, and fire hooks are positioned flanking the second first-floor window from the right. A depressed arched carriageway is on the left, with a boarded tympanum. A side door within the tympanum has six raised and fielded panels and a three-part rectangular overlight.

At the rear, two stone-coped gables are visible on the right-hand side, one with a small integral lateral brick stack and the other with an integral brick end stack. The rear also features boxed glazing bar sashes, and an 18th-century wing to the left with a plat band (to the north-west), a central brick ridge stack, and a brick ridge stack on the left. A 20th-century addition is visible to the front of this wing. A single-storey, early 19th-century lean-to is located at the angle, with a large 16-pane glazing bar sash window.

The assembly room or ballroom adjoining the rear is from the early to mid-19th century. It is constructed of red brick with a hipped slate roof and has a deep eaves line and an integral brick end stack to the right. It has four bays, featuring wooden cross windows with painted stone cills and slightly segmental heads. The ground floor has been altered with the insertion of a steel beam over four openings. The left-hand ground-floor corner features ashlar dressings.

The interior contains 18th- and early 19th-century fittings, including an early 18th-century corner buffet in the right-hand ground-floor room, comprising a round arch with a moulded architrave, raised and fielded panels in the spandrels, a moulded cornice, shaped shelves, and a 17th-century ovolo-moulded beam. A 19th-century fireplace is also present. There is an early 18th-century segmental archway leading to the staircase hall, with reeded antae, and a dog-leg staircase rising to the attic, featuring a closed string, turned balusters, a moulded handrail, and square newel posts with double quirked beaded corners and moulded caps. The assembly room/ballroom has a moulded cornice and a central ceiling rose.

The front of the building appears to be an early 19th-century refacing of an earlier 18th-century structure, as evidenced by a straight joint in the side wall of the carriageway. The Victoria Hotel was formerly known as The Red Lion.