The Queens Head Public House With Attached East Barn,Linked South Block And Automobile Association Village Sign On Barn

The Queen's Head Public House with Attached East Barn, Linked South Block and Automobile Association Village Sign on Barn

This is an inn, now operating as a public house, situated at the crossroads in Long Marston. It forms an irregular L-shaped group of buildings arranged around a front courtyard, with a separate south block.

The main range dates from the late 16th or early 17th century. It was remodelled and heightened during the late 17th century, and subsequently linked to a taller barn of similar early date to its east. An 18th-century brick south block was constructed, leaving a carriageway to the north. The inn's timber frame was cased in red brickwork, with the addition of brick casing dated 'HH 1836' over the south entrance. A mid-19th-century north-west wing and new west front were added, and a low entrance link was constructed in the later 20th century, blocking what had been a carriageway.

The building displays considerable variety in its external materials and finishes. The main structure is timber-framed, cased in red brickwork. The east part and barn are dark weatherboarded. The west front block features a stuccoed brick finish. The south block employs red and black chequered brick. All have steep red tiled roofs, except the west block which has a slate roof.

The west-facing front elevation is two storeys tall, presenting two windows to each floor with a door in the middle and a right-hand ground floor window offset to the right. The windows are 3-light 19th-century casements, slightly recessed with segmental arches and cross-bars. The smooth stucco work includes a plinth, door surround, and window arches on the ground floor and at the corners. Dentilled eaves mark the roofline. A small north gable houses a chimney, and a moulded capping runs along a beam projecting at the front to carry the inn sign.

To the rear, the structure reveals its complex development. An internal south gable chimney is in fact an 18th-century stack serving the west room of the older range, which now lies behind the 19th-century west front and extends as a lower two-storey range to the rear. This rear range has irregular fenestration including 3-light 18th-century leaded casements to the first floor and a lean-to tiled brick porch. The south wall exhibits older brickwork with black headers in its lower section, with 19th-century dated brickwork above on the first floor. The rear wall to the north exposes timber frame with brick nogging and a 2-light 18th-century leaded casement with segmental head above the roof of a lean-to beer store.

The east part is dark weatherboarded and links to a higher and wider barn, also weatherboarded with a half-hipped roof. An early Automobile Association village sign for Long Marston—a circular enamelled steel sign in yellow with black lettering—is mounted on the east end of the barn.

The south block is two storeys with a west gable to the road, possibly originally a brewhouse with a heated room above accessed by a separate stair. Its west front displays one window to each floor, constructed of black and red brickwork with wide red brick quoins and vertical brick bands, plinth and segmental arches. A red tilehung gable rises above a 3-light old casement to the first floor; the ground floor window has been replaced with a 2-light 20th-century casement. An old painted metal sign on the wall reads 'YE OLDE QUEENS HEAD STABLES'. The regular red brick south side fronts the boundary. Entrances on the north side include a central 3-light 18th-century leaded casement window above a wide single doorway with segmental gauged arch. A plank door to the stair at the north-east corner hangs from a timber corner post. Vertical timbers appear in the plastered east gable above a large chimney serving both floors. A lower and later extension extends to the east, with brick and tile single-storey link to the main range featuring central doors.

The interior reveals the building's evolution. It began as a single-storey 16th-century structure with a gable to the road and two bays on each side of a narrower central bay where the south entrance now stands. A central chimney and stair at the rear were probably removed from this narrow bay when the walls were heightened by two feet and separate lateral chimneys were provided at each end. Both new and old wall-plates are exposed on the first floor and continue through a partition wall in the 19th-century front block. The upper wall-plate features a butt-jointed scarf joint and straight braces to the older framing. Axial chamfered floor beams support exposed joists.

The barn is tall, spanning two bays with jowled posts, unjowled mid-bay posts, and mid-height rails jointed in-line. Thin curved tension braces support the structure. The roof employs a clasped-purlin design with one purlin, straight wind-braces, and inclined curved queen-posts, but no collars. Double doors to the road occupy the west bay.