The Mytton And Mermaid Hotel

The Mytton and Mermaid Hotel is a house, later used as an inn and now a hotel, dating from the mid- to late 18th century with likely alterations in the late 19th century. It is constructed of red brick with a hipped roof covered in machine tiles. The building is three storeys high with a basement and has a wooden dentil eaves cornice, although the dentils have been removed above the second-floor windows. Three late 19th-century rusticated brick stacks are present on the ridge to the right, integrated at the left end, and at the rear. The front has seven bays, featuring glazing bar sashes with gauged heads. Painted blind windows are present on the first floor in the first and sixth bays from the left, and on the ground floor in the second bay from the right. The central door has six raised and fielded panels, an overlight with three intersecting ovals, and a doorcase consisting of Doric pilasters supporting an entablature with a dentil cornice and a triangular pediment; a small statue above the pediment is a later addition. Steps lead down to a segmental-headed basement door on the right. The west front has six bays, with a three-storey bow to the three right-hand bays. Painted blind windows appear on the first and second floors of the third bay from the left, and a door with six raised and fielded panels (with glazed top panels) is located in the third bay from the left, accompanied by a plain architrave and brackets that formerly supported a hood. Inside, a staircase from the 18th century has a dog-leg design, closed string, turned balusters, a moulded handrail, square newel posts, and a columnular bottom newel. A wall cupboard on the first-floor landing features shaped shelves. A pair of probably 18th-century baluster-shaped stone pedestals with foliage carving stand against the main front between the second and third and fifth and sixth bays from the left. The hotel was known as The Talbot Arms until the early 19th century when it became The Berwick Arms. In the mid- to late 19th century, it served as a private home and was known as Atcham House. It was later purchased in the early 1930s from the Attingham Estate by Sir Clough William-Ellis, who converted it back into a hotel, giving it its present name. Notable guests have included Augustus John.