Kings Head Hotel

Kings Head Hotel

Hotel dating from the 15th century onwards, with substantial additions and alterations through the 16th, 17th, 18th and later centuries. The building is substantially timber-framed, with parts rendered, painted brick and weatherboarded. Roofs are covered with plain tiles in a variety of forms.

The plan is complex, with a range fronting the street and a series of extensions running to the rear. The front elevation of painted brick is substantially two-storeys with a three-storey wing to the east. The two-storey section has a roof parallel to the street, hipped to the west, which abuts the three-storey wing. A substantial T-plan stack with a curious rendered recess rises from the junction between the two blocks.

The lower block has a plain parapet, slightly stepped, with a projecting flat-roofed dormer containing a nine-pane sash window. The western part of the facade is slightly recessed with two segmental-headed twelve-pane sashes on the first floor. The ground floor has a slightly bowed oriel with flat roof and sixteen-pane sash. The projecting part has a segmental-headed blind recess and two twelve-pane sashes on the first floor. The ground floor contains a vertically aligned blind recess, a square oriel bow with sixteen-pane sash window, and a projecting Tuscan porch with thin painted timber Tuscan columns and pilaster responds. The door has six raised-and-fielded panels and a rectangular Gothick fanlight. An elaborate hanging sign with wrought-iron bracket is positioned on the first floor.

The three-storey part projects slightly with a roof hipped to the front behind a plain parapet. The second floor has a central segmental-headed nine-pane sash window. A canted bay rises through the lower two storeys with a flat roof, featuring at first floor a small-paned asymmetrical tripartite sash and on the ground floor a pair of linked twelve-pane sashes. The east flank is of three storeys in painted weatherboarding with the roof returning to a hip at the rear. The second floor has a twelve-pane sash window. The ground floor has two door openings and windows with margin glazing and central vertical glazing bars respectively. The rear of the three-storey wing has a French window at second-floor level leading to a 20th-century metal fire escape. The first floor has a tripartite sash with single vertical glazing bars.

To the rear of this block is a 20th-century flat-roofed extension with canted faces, linking to a rendered two-storey block placed parallel but to the rear of the main range, with a plain tile roof and substantial stack through its northern roof slope. A long rear extension range runs down the western boundary of the site. The northernmost part is of two low storeys of 19th-century red brick with 20th-century windows, with a plain tile roof of two differing ridgelines, the southernmost part having been altered. To its rear is a 20th-century single-storey block of red brick with machine-made plain tile roof.

Interior

The oldest surviving part is the frontage range, which contains remnants of timber-framing from a pair of semi-detached Wealden-type houses, each formerly consisting of a floored bay and a single-bay hall. The hall and the westernmost part of one cross-wing are missing and now form part of the adjoining building. The development and relatively poor quality of the timber suggests a speculative development of the early to mid-15th century. An early 17th-century inglenook stack now backs onto the former intruded cross-passage of the eastern unit, with an upper part featuring a moulded corbel course of the late 17th century. The frontage range was raised in the early 19th century and some of the 15th-century rafters were reused. The superimposed eastern wing is of early 19th-century softwood framing.

The two-storey range fronting the western boundary contains a late 16th-century two-bay structure with central deep collared A-frame truss and a mixture of internal and external wall bracing. To its rear is a probable mid-17th-century two-bay block. At right angles is an early 19th-century block incorporating reused material from the old rear walls of the Wealden range.

The eastern first-floor chamber of the frontage range has late 16th-century wall-painting consisting of an arcade of blue and grey paint over studs and infill. In the main range, a late 18th-century staircase survives with column newels, barleysugar-twist balusters and hardwood handrail, continued to the attics by an early 19th-century stair with stick balusters. The first floor of the main range retains some 18th-century panelled partitions, doors and architraves. A first-floor room has an early 19th-century corner cupboard with doors, arch-headed recess on pilasters and serpentine shelves. A room in the three-storey wing has a fireplace with shouldered architrave.