The Fox And Hounds Public House With Inn Sign

The Fox and Hounds is a mid-17th century public house and inn, with later additions from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. The building is timber-framed with roughcast rendering and has steeply pitched tiled roofs. The original core is a two-cell lobby entry with a rear wing. The front façade has a central entrance flanked by small-pane three-light casement windows. Above, there are two similar two-light casements. The eaves are boxed, and a tall central stack behind the ridge has multiple diagonal fillets, a moulded base and an oversailing cap. Exposed plates and purlins are visible in the gable ends. To the left is a single-bay, single-storey outshut with a three-light casement. To the right is a slightly set-back, one-bay, two-storey addition with a steeply pitched roof to the front and a shallower roof to the rear, featuring three-light casements to the ground floor and two-light casements to the first floor. A separately gabled 19th-century brewhouse bay is attached to the rear wing, featuring an external red brick stack with offsets. The rear wing extends from the front block at an angle, with a first-floor two-light casement and exposed plates and purlins on its rear gable end. The interior of the ground floor retains some exposed timber framing and a double fireplace with a chamfered depressed brick arch and a cambered timber bressumer. A 20th-century addition extends to the rear left. Attached to the right gable end is an inn sign, consisting of a timber beam supported by posts, displaying painted silhouette figures of huntsmen and hounds pursuing a fox towards the public house’s gable. This sign, dating to approximately 1955, replaced an earlier sign which had previously spanned the High Street at the location of the original Fox and Hounds Inn. The building was formerly known as the Waggon and Horses Public House.