The White Hart Inn

FYFIELD AND TUBNEY MAIN ROAD SU4298 (North side) Fyfield 12/62 The White Hart Inn 06/08/52 (Formerly listed as White Hart Inn)

GV II*

Almshouses and chantry priest's house, now public house. Mid C15, built for Sir John Golafre after his death in 1442. Restored 1963. Roughcast, with ashlar dressings: left wing, originally timber-framed, is now rendered with main elements of frame and tension braces exposed to front and rear. Gabled stone slate roof; tapered external end stacks of stone rubble finished in brick. 3-unit hall range of open hall and service rooms to right, with parlour cross wing to left. 2 storeys: 4-window range. Hall range: C20 door to screens with stone surrounds and C20 door to right. C18 two-, 3- and 4-light restored casements, except two 3- and 5-light ovolo-moulded wood-mullioned windows with leaded-lights to top right: stone dressings to blocked C15 window which lit left bay of hall, Parlour wing: similar C18 casements, and blocked C15 plain wood-mullioned window in right side wall. Rear: stone dressings to C15 screens doorway and blocked hall window; parlour wing has blocked C15 plain wood-mullioned window over chamfered stone stair-light in right side wall. C19 extensions to sides of colourwashed rubble with hipped and gabled stone slate roofs. Interior: restored in 1963. Parlour wing: ground-floor parlour has stop-chamfered joists, blocked C15 fireplace adjoining exposed spandrel of mid/late C16 stone moulded fireplace; C16 panelling to rear; stone spiral stairs with timber treads; first-floor solar has lateral timber partitions with rebated doorframes under tie beams of 2-bay king-post trusses with clasped purlins and curved wind-braces; blocked window with 2 oak mullions in left side wall. Hall range: open hall has chamfered arch-braced roof truss with upper collar, tabled clasped purlins, arched windbraces and ashlar plate. Timber-framed dais partition with tension braces set over projecting ogee-moulded dais beam: timber-framed screens partition set over 2 four-centred service doors with quatrefoil spandrels to right. 2-unit service area has ogee-stopped beams and open fireplaces in right side wall: original layout possibly consisted of screens opening to a buttery and/or pantry to the left of a kitchen. History: Sir John Golafre who died in 1442, left money for the foundation of the House or Hospital of St. John the Baptist which maintained 5 almsmen and a chantry priest, who maintained the chantry chapel in the Church of St. Nicholas (q.v.). The parlour wing probably accommodated the priest, and the rooms over the service area the bedesmen. After the Dissolution it eventually, in 1580, passed to St. John's College, Oxford, who still own it. Buildings of England: Oxfordshire, p.146; Oxfordshire County Museums, Woodstock, P.R.N. 9821; Bodleian Library, MS Top. Berks c.55 for 58 photos of White Hart before and after restoration).

Listing NGR: SU4235698760