The White Hart Inn

The White Hart Inn, originally almshouses and a chantry priest's house, dates to the mid-15th century and was built for Sir John Golafre after his death in 1442. It was restored in 1963. The building is constructed of roughcast with ashlar dressings, with a gabled stone slate roof and tapered external end stacks of stone rubble finished in brick. It comprises a three-unit hall range alongside a parlour cross wing to the left.

The hall range originally had a timber frame, now rendered with the main elements of the frame and tension braces visible on both the front and rear elevations. The ground floor of the hall range features a C20 door with stone surrounds and another C20 door to the right. The windows are largely restored C18 two-, three- and four-light casements, with two 3- and 5-light ovolo-moulded wood-mullioned windows to the top right. Stone dressings are visible to a blocked C15 window that originally lit the left bay of the hall. The parlour wing has matching C18 casements and a blocked C15 plain wood-mullioned window in its right side wall. The rear elevation showcases stone dressings to a C15 screens doorway and a blocked hall window. The parlour wing also has a blocked C15 plain wood-mullioned window over a chamfered stone stair-light in its right-hand side wall. C19 extensions, built of colourwashed rubble, extend from the sides, with hipped and gabled stone slate roofs.

The interior was restored in 1963. The parlour wing's ground-floor parlour contains stop-chamfered joists, a blocked C15 fireplace adjoining an exposed spandrel of a mid/late C16 stone moulded fireplace, C16 panelling to the rear, and a stone spiral staircase with timber treads. The first-floor solar includes lateral timber partitions with rebated doorframes, situated under tie beams of two-bay king-post trusses that incorporate clasped purlins and curved wind-braces. A blocked window with two oak mullions is located in the left side wall. In the open hall range, features include a chamfered arch-braced roof truss with upper collar, tabled clasped purlins, arched wind-braces, and an ashlar plate. A timber-framed dais partition features tension braces, set over a projecting ogee-moulded dais beam, while a timber-framed screens partition sits above two four-centred service doors with quatrefoil spandrels to the right. The two-unit service area has ogee-stopped beams and original fireplaces in the right side wall; the original layout may have included screens opening to a buttery and/or pantry to the left of a kitchen.

Sir John Golafre, who died in 1442, endowed the House or Hospital of St. John the Baptist to support five almsmen and a chantry priest, who maintained the chantry chapel in the Church of St. Nicholas. The parlour wing likely housed the priest, with the rooms above the service area accommodating the bedesmen. Following the Dissolution, the property passed to St. John's College, Oxford, who retain ownership.