George Hotel

The George Hotel, dating from the late 18th century with later additions, is a brick building with a stucco facade and a graduated slate roof, arranged around a courtyard. It is built in a Georgian style, with a symmetrical main two-storey, five-bay section and flanking three-storey, three-window ranges. The main section features a rusticated ground floor and Ionic pilasters, frieze, and cornice to the first floor. A large canted angle extends to the left end of the ground floor. A central elliptical-headed carriage entrance has later glazed doors and sidelights with a cornice. Windows generally boast sills and 12-pane sashes; ground floor windows in the central section are recessed with rusticated wedge lintels, while those above are larger and include panels. Second-floor windows have 6-pane sashes. A modillioned brick cornice tops the right-hand three-storey range, which has 12-pane sashes on the ground and first floors, with rubbed brick flat arches over those on the first and second floors. Rear wings include one with a hipped slate roof and one extended in the late 19th century.

The interior contains a large ballroom on the first floor, featuring an entablature with scrolled foliage to a panelled frieze, a segmental vault with guilloche bands and ceiling roses, and a distyle-in-antis colonnade to a rear recess with columns copied from the Tower of the Winds. The entrance hall incorporates a doorcase with panelled pilasters and an entablature with an enriched frieze, paired three-panel doors, and simple marble fireplaces with 19th-century overmirrors. A staircase has stick balusters and two columns leading to the landing.

The hotel served the London to Chester road and is considered one of the two most significant inns in Lichfield. It is notable for its rare ballroom and was described by Pevsner as “one of the best late 18th century hotel buildings in the land”. The playwright George Farquhar stayed at a predecessor building in 1705, later immortalizing it in "The Beaux Stratagem".