The Old Beehive

The Old Beehive is a house, formerly a public house and later a school, with a core dating to the 16th century and early 19th-century alterations and a front. The construction is timber-framed, with a painted brick front, a rendered side wall, and a rear wall of kidney flint with red brick dressings. The roof is slate, with a wide plain eaves cornice.

The exterior features three storeys and a cellar. The front has a two-window arrangement. The first storey has 12-pane sash windows in plain reveals with projecting stone sills. The second storey has 6-pane sash windows, also in plain reveals. The ground storey has a replacement 12-pane sash window, and a small, single-storey flat-roofed bay containing a 12-pane sash window with a 4-pane canted side light, all in a flush cased frame. A four-panel door is set within a moulded wood doorcase with pilasters and a cornice. Blocked elliptical arches within the brickwork above the door and windows indicate the former presence of a wide carriage entry, with a similar archway at the rear.

The interior includes a large main beam with a wide chamfer, partially boxed in, spanning the entire ground storey, indicating an earlier core and a likely rearrangement during conversion into a public house. The cellar has 19th-century brickwork mixed with older flint rubble and render. A 19th-century winder stair has a ramped handrail and stick balusters. The attic reveals the slope of a lower, earlier roof in the gable wall.

At the rear is a narrow, timber-framed and rendered two-bay range with a pantiled roof, jettied and formerly free-standing, but now linked to the main front. This range is probably from the 16th century, but dating is difficult due to the covering of its features. In the yard, there's an early 19th-century outbuilding, originally two storeys but now single-storey, rendered, with a central door and two 12-pane sash windows in flush cased frames. This was formerly a games room for the public house. A sale notice from 1858 describes the property as 'The Beehive Beer House,' likely marking the date when The Beehive was transferred to No. 21 College Street.