The Bell Inn

The Bell Inn is a public house that was originally a house, dating from the early 17th century and incorporating late 12th century stonework. It features colour-washed render over a timber frame, a gabled plain tile roof, and brick stacks at the ends, ridge, and rear. The building has a three-unit plan, is one storey with an attic, and has a three-window range. There is a flat rendered arch over a mid 18th century fielded six-panelled door, a flat rendered arch over a late 19th century cross window with shutters in the center, and a canted bay window with glazing-bar sashes to the right. A half dormer contains a late 19th century three-light casement. The rear has a mid 19th century lean-to and a mid 20th century flat-roofed extension.

Inside, the building features deeply-chamfered ground-floor beams and stop-chamfered joists, an open fireplace with a chamfered bressummer at the center, and a late 18th century plank door next to the stack. Some of the timber frame is exposed, showing wall bracing. The roof has trenched purlins with a central raised cruck made of very thin scantling and curved windbraces in the right bay.

The Bell Inn is particularly notable for its impressive collection of reset mid 12th century sculptured stones in the style of the Herefordshire school, making it the only known example of this style in Shropshire apart from Stottesdon. The stones include several interlace panels, some designed as interwoven knots. The rear exterior wall features an interlace panel shaped like a scaled body with a large dragon-like head. A panel set in the rear wall shows two figures with arms raised across their chests in a prayerful gesture, set within an arcade with simple flat capitals on the pillars. The internal rear wall has a panel depicting Samson or Hercules and the Lion, which retains part of its moulded frame, although the right half of the scene is lost. An adjoining panel illustrates St Michael and the Devil, with the figure in flowing, fluted robes leaning over a serpent, though the upper half is also missing. A 20th century stone fireplace in the left ground-floor room features a panel depicting a figure in a fluted robe struggling through a tangle of interlaced foliage.