The White Lion Public House (On Corner Of Winters Lane)

The White Lion Public House is a 16th-century inn, significantly altered in the late 17th century. It is located on the corner of Winters Lane in Walkern High Street. The building is timber-framed with a brick base, roughcast with weatherboarding to the ends, rear, and the southern wing. The central section features red brickwork with black headers arranged in a chequered pattern. It has steep red tile roofs. The inn has a long, H-shaped plan, presenting a two-storey façade to the west, with projecting gabled crosswings at each end. A six-window brick façade is centrally positioned, alongside a wide, projecting porch connecting to the southern wing. The central part has a large chimney positioned approximately one-third from the southern end, and an enclosed rear gallery linking the wings. A smaller chimney with two diagonal square shafts (rebuilt) is found at the northern end of the central section, with a 19th-century chimney added to the north side of the northern wing. A plastered, one-and-a-half-storey extension projects to the rear of the gabled stair projection. The western front has plastered gabled wings, each featuring wavy 19th-century bargeboards with pendants at the apex and foot, and flush three-light casement windows on each floor. The plastered porch has a 19th-century wide oak Tudor arch with two chamfered orders and octagonal shafts, sheltered by a moulded label. Seats flank a battened door. The brick façade incorporates a plinth, floorband, moulded eaves cornice, segmental arches over the lower windows, and slightly recessed 17th-century cross windows with wooden opening lights. Windows 1 and 5 from the north are painted in plastered recesses; the first ground floor window has been widened to match a cross window. A fine doorcase is positioned under the third window, leading to a six-panel flush beaded door within a moulded surround, topped with a full entablature on heavy plain trusses. The frieze is swelled, and the cornice breaks forward over the trusses within a triangular pediment. Internally, the inn features exposed chamfered beams and exposed close-studding on the first floor of the two-bay southern wing. Shield-shaped corbel supports a floor beam in the two-bay northern wing. Ovolo-moulded two-light windows are blocked on the upper floor of the southern wall of the southern wing. A trimmer suggests a stair at the eastern end of the southern service wing, which has lower floor levels.