White Horse Inn

The White Horse Inn occupies a prominent position on Maldon’s High Street and comprises a public house, shop, and flats, built in the late 16th century and early 19th century. The front range is painted brick, while the rear sections are timber-framed and rendered. The front range has a hipped Welsh slate roof with a large Gault-brick stack on the party wall between numbers 26 and 28; the rear ranges have gabled plain tile roofs.

The exterior is three storeys high with a cellar. The front of number 26 features a plain parapet and a second floor with three unequally spaced sash windows, recessed and with gauged brick flat arches. The window to number 28 has a central vertical glazing bar, while the windows of number 26 have small panes and margin glazing. The first floor has canted flat-roofed oriels with sash windows; the window to number 28 has a central vertical glazing bar, and the windows of number 26 are 16-paned with reeded pilasters at the corners of the bays. The ground floor of number 26 has a continuous fascia with a flat cornice hood carried on three Grecian panelled pilasters. It features a canted bay window with a 16-pane sash and panelled detailing to provide access to the cellar. A carriageway leads to the rear yard, accessed by a pair of boarded doors. The ground floor of number 28 has a 19th-century shop window with a fascia and consoles, and a shop front of plate glass with a cant-sided recess to the door, added in the early 20th century.

The rear elevation is rendered and has a dogtooth eaves course, extending over a two-storey contemporary rear range. Above the carriageway, sash windows are present on each floor; the 2-storey rear block has a 12-paned sash window on each floor, along with a mixture of 19th and 20th-century small windows. Behind this is a long, rendered timber-framed range with a plain tile roof, with a single bay of narrower span roof at the south end. The eaves overhang is substantial, supported by two straight raking braces and a later hanging knee. A 20th-century slate-roofed lean-to conceals part of this flank. Present are a 19th-century casement window on the first floor and 20th-century doors and windows on the ground floor. This timber-frame range is truncated at the north end and now consists of two full bays and a smaller bay at the south end.

The interior of the rear timber-framed range features a central open truss with arch braces to the tie beam, and the north wall forms a partition. The spine beams and bridging joists of the floor are chamfered with run-out stops. The eaves overhang is an unusual feature, possibly relating to the Wealden house type or intended to shelter a gallery.