Blue Boar Hotel

Blue Boar Hotel

Hotel dating from the late 14th century with 16th-century and early 19th-century additions. The main range is timber-framed with a front of Suffolk white brick in Flemish bond and a hipped roof of plain tiles. Various rear ranges have roofs of plain tiles or slate, with walls of brickwork, render, or weatherboarding. The building includes No. 12 Princes Street, which is now part of the hotel complex.

The front elevation faces Silver Street and rises three storeys above a cellar. It is a five-window range with a plain parapet featuring two low steps up to the centre. The second floor has square recessed 16-pane sash windows with painted rubbed brick flat arches. The first floor has similar but deeper windows and an inn sign in an elaborate wrought-iron bracket. The ground floor has an off-centre Tuscan porch with a dentilled cornice and segmental-bowed front. The pair of doors each have two moulded panels over a flush panel with a rectangular fanlight above. Either side are bay windows—one square with very small panes dating to the 20th century, and one cant-sided with large panes. An elliptical-headed carriage arch with painted timber gates provides access to the yard. The ground floor also contains a single 16-pane sash window with bullseye glass and an entrance door with a semicircular head, semicircular leaded fanlight, and two raised-and-fielded panels. The rear of this range is rendered where not obscured, with two 12-pane sash windows and a rear wall stack.

The historically most important elevation is the north-east face of a long range immediately south-west of the carriage arch. Beneath the arch, a wall of substantial timber-framing with arch bracing is exposed, featuring two small-paned fixed-light windows. To the rear of the arch, a short length of this structure is revealed over its full two storeys, with a remnant of the plain tile roof. Behind this (to the north-west) is a long jettied two-storey range, partially underbuilt but with the framing exposed on the upper floor. The first floor has a 9-pane fixed-light window with two unequal lights, small-paned horizontal-sliding casement windows, one tripartite sash window with one vertical glazing bar, and a 20th-century small-paned window with top ventilator. The ground floor has two 2-light small-paned casements, two 3-light small-paned casements, and a 20th-century small-paned casement with top vent. The north-west gable has an end stack.

Beyond this range is a late 17th-century two-storey extension with plain tiles, a first floor of black tarred boarding, and a lean-to plain tiled ground floor of render with a door and 20th-century small-paned window. Beyond this again is a 19th-century two-storey outbuilding of yellow-pink brick with a slate roof, gabled to the south-east and hipped to the north-east. This structure forms staff cottages with loft over, featuring small-paned sash windows and two gabled porches on brackets.

The rear elevation to Coach Lane of the jettied block is of painted pebbledash with a rear wall stack and exposed fireplace. The first floor has two unequal-light windows with small panes, a 20th-century small-paned window, and a 6-pane sash. The ground floor has three glazed doors, two 16-pane sash windows, and a small window with cross-pattern glazing. The 17th-century extension beyond has a 16-pane sash window over a square bay window with large panes, with its slate hipped roof extending to form a shallow porch.

Attached to the rear of the 19th-century loft block is No. 12 Princes Street (now part of the Blue Boar complex), a two-storey mid-19th-century L-plan house with a slate roof and yellow stock brick. It has margin-glazed sash windows and a doorcase to the street with fluted pilasters and rectangular fanlight. To the rear of the main hotel block fronting Silver Street is a substantial two-storey mid-19th-century kitchen and service extension of yellow stock brick with a mixture of hipped and lean-to slate roofs. This extension has small-paned sash windows and a rooftop clerestorey ventilator with an independent hipped slate roof.

To the north-west of this is a single-storey L-plan block with a plain tile roof and stock bricks, which links to a late 19th-century one-storey-plus-loft stable block. The stable block is of red Flemish-bond brick with black engineering brick jambs to openings. It is relatively unaltered and has a projecting gabled loft door and a roof of pantiles with Suffolk verge detail.

Interior

The timber-framed structure immediately to the south-west of the carriage arch is the oldest surviving part and was originally a three-bay building of two storeys, apparently dating from the late 14th century. It is very similar in carpentry detail to the Swan Hotel on High Street. The front ground-floor room had a central door leading into the central bay with curious alternating front and rear mortices for wall studs. The rear (north-west) wall has a series of ogee arches at both levels, some moved from elsewhere in the wall. All members are double-pegged; parts are unjowled, and one original tie beam has been reused in the ceiling of the hotel reception area. Part of the moulded cross-quadrate crown-post roof has survived where undisturbed by early 19th-century rebuilding, which affected the front part of the structure.

The part of the main frontage range now comprising the main entrance contains remnants of a two-bay hall, formerly open-framed at its south-west end. This has moulded arch braces of a character suggestive of the 14th century, though of a delicacy more likely to be of the mid-16th century.

To the north-east is a fragment of a two-storey cross-wing, the bressumer of which is moulded (visible in the dining room) and suggests two wide shop-like openings to the street. The late 14th-century structure (now the bar) is of particular interest and may represent a fragment of an in-line house, at right-angles to the street, perhaps akin to the structure behind the Nags Head in Shrewsbury.

History

In the 1530s, John Church, a leading Burgess of Maldon and former auditor of Beeleigh Abbey, purchased the property and erected the jettied range to the rear. In doing so, he converted the whole complex into the Blue Boar Inn in deference to the De Vere, Earl of Oxford, the property being part of the estate of the Earls of Maldon. This jettied range provided a wide staircase, a large chamber on each floor, and a series of smaller rooms. The carpentry is somewhat old-fashioned with octagonal crown posts and appears to be an attempt to copy the appearance of the older building. The yard elevation originally had oriel windows and external curved wall bracing.