The Gun And Spitroast Public House And Rear Courtyard

The Gun and Spitroast Public House, located on The Heath, is a public house that dates back to the 17th century or earlier, with alterations and extensions made in the 18th and early 19th centuries. The building features a timber frame with tile hanging and has been extended with painted brick. It has plain tiled roofs and consists of two parallel ranges that extend to the right. The structure is two storeys tall with an attic, set on a plinth, and includes a discontinuous plat band and a moulded wooden eaves cornice. The roof is hipped to the right and gabled to the left, with stacks located at the rear left and rear right, as well as three hipped dormers. The ridge line steps down to the right, leading to a two-storey section with a stack at the end right.

On the first floor, there are five wooden casements with two and three lights, while the ground floor features a three-light casement to the left with a segmental head and a large hipped porch to the centre left, which has a four-centred arched boarded door. The right section has a ground floor that is built out with plate glass picture windows and a boarded door to the right. At the rear, there is a two-storey wing that is gabled, with a projecting cross-wing on the left that has a hipped roof and gablet. A small rear courtyard contains early 19th-century single-storey outbuildings made of red brick with plain tiled roofs.

Inside, the building has been altered in the late 20th century, but elements of the original frame are still visible, including an inglenook fireplace. The original name of the establishment was The Gun, which was first licensed in the 1570s and was licensed as a forge in 1618. The Heath, which is now the village centre, developed about two miles from the church as a result of the 16th and 17th-century iron industry, particularly that of the Brown family, Royal Gunfounders, with their mill pond at Shirrenden still surviving half a mile to the north-east.