White Lion Hotel

The White Lion Hotel is a 17th-century inn that was significantly refronted in the early 19th century and extended in the mid-19th and early 20th centuries. It is now a public house and hotel, located in Market Cross Place, Aldeburgh.

The original inn section has a three-storey front with an irregular arrangement of windows. It features polygonal angle turrets rising above a crenellated parapet. The ground floor has two tripartite sash windows with 2/2, 6/6, and 2/2 glazing bars, alongside a fixed 12-pane window. The first floor has two taller tripartite windows with 3/6, 6/9, and 3/6 sashes, while the second floor has three 8/8 unhorned sashes. Continuous hoodmoulds are above the ground and first-floor tripartite windows. A dentilled eaves cornice runs along the top. An internal gable-end stack sits to the north.

A mid-19th-century central block features three storeys and four bays, with the third bay blind on the first and second floors. A double-leaf panelled door, set behind a portico porch supported by two unfluted columns, is located in the third bay. The ground and first floors have unhorned 8/8 sash windows. The second floor has three 4/8 unhorned sashes. A dentil eaves cornice is present, alongside an internal gable-end stack to the north and a ridge stack to the left of the centre.

A house dating back to approximately 1820 has a two-storey, four-window front. A plain doorway is on the left, and the ground floor has single plain-glazed sashes alternating with tripartite horned sashes. The first floor has four tripartite sashes arranged in two groups of two, with a 2/2, 6/6, 2/2 glazing pattern. A dentil eaves cornice finishes the facade, and an internal gable-end stack is on the south.

The interior of the original north block's ground floor has been opened up to create a dining room. At the north end is a 17th-century rendered brick fireplace with a four-centred arch and carved dragons in the spandrels. The overmantel features a central arcaded panel flanked by geometric panels, each with pilasters displaying high-relief carvings of bacchanalian male and female figures. Small-framed panelling is present throughout the room, although much of it is not original to the location. A room on the ground floor of the central block has fielded panelling and an egg-and-dart frieze. A ballroom at the hotel's south end is similarly adorned with 19th-century panelling and pilasters. The open-stringed staircase has turned balusters and foliate wreathed tread ends.