44, High Street

At 44 High Street in Windlesham stands a timber-framed building of considerable historical significance. Originally part of an inn and later a shop, it now serves as an office. The structure represents the remains of a probable 14th-century aisled hall that was rebuilt in the late 15th or early 16th century. The building was refronted in brick during the 18th century and refenestrated in the early to mid 19th century. It is a three-bay building, with an inserted hearth and a crosswing in the adjoining property to the south west (not inspected). The building may also have been extended to the north east, though the adjoining building was not inspected. The timber frame is now refronted in brick, painted, with a plain tiled roof and end brick chimneys.

The exterior presents two storeys with a pattern of four windows on the first floor and two on the ground floor. The first floor features mid-19th-century 12-pane sash windows with horns. The ground floor has two mid-19th-century sashes with verticals only and horns. To the east is a later 19th-century splayed shopfront with a glazed and panelled entrance door. A partial plinth runs along the building.

The interior reveals the building's medieval origins and sophisticated later development. The west end of the structure is formed by the bay frame of an aisled hall, probably of 14th-century date, intact except for the bay post removed when the building was refronted. Early 16th-century frame is exposed on the south and west walls of the ground floor and at the east end. Most of the frame on the first floor is concealed behind plaster. The complete roof structure survives, employing side purlin and windbrace construction with old rafters and three queen posts.

The ground floor comprises a two-bay room at the west end adjoining a single-bay room. The exposed framework to the partition between these two rooms was inserted, though probably at an early date. The two-bay room was heated by a chimney inserted beyond the early framed bay, of which the bressumer ends to the opening remain. Two windows originally existed in the south wall but were blocked in the early 16th century to enable wall paintings to be executed. A roll-moulded cross beam and vertical post with roll moulding are present.

The wall paintings represent the most remarkable feature of the interior. They survive on three sides of the two-bay room. The topmost scheme consists of black, white and reddish ochre highlighting foliate decoration with fabulous beast grotesques. Above the fire surround are the Prince of Wales feathers with coronet above, the whole positioned at the bottom of a large sunburst cartouche. Below these wall paintings are early 16th-century antique-work in white on a black background, possibly with pilasters and grotesques. Some painting appears to relate to the aisled wall framing, since it continues above the existing ceiling, and therefore predates the structure which replaced the open hall. The rear wall to the two-bay room retains early blue paint dating to at least the 16th century. The single-bay room features an early 16th-century foliate scroll above a doorway, part mid-19th-century reeded panels to the east wall, an 18th-century cornice and some roll moulding. The first floor contains an early doorhead now situated in a cupboard, 18th-century two-panelled doors, and a room with an 18th-century cornice.

The building's historical context is complex and significant. The north west corner post of the painted room has been dendrochronologically dated with a likely felling period of AD 1485–1517. The sunburst surrounding the Prince of Wales badge was a Yorkist emblem and therefore unlikely to have been used after 1485 by the Lancastrian Tudors. It is possible therefore that the badge could refer to either Edward, son of Edward IV, created Prince of Wales in 1471 who acceded as Edward V in 1483, or Edward, son of Richard III, created Prince of Wales in 1483 who died the following year. Subsequent Princes of Wales were Prince Arthur, eldest son of Henry VII, invested in 1489 (died 1502), and Henry, second son of Henry VII (later Henry VIII). Edward VI was never formally invested as Prince of Wales, and there follows a gap until 1610 when Arthur, eldest son of James I, was invested as Prince of Wales.

The building's layout, with a gallery to the rear, and its location on the main road to London suggest it was an inn. It formed part of the main ranges of a substantial inn called the Red Lion, and before that The Saracen's Head. The grand room on the ground floor and rooms on the first floor with greater than usual height indicate a building of high status. The ground floor room may have been used as a court room. The proximity of this building to Bagshot Park, an enclosed hunting estate belonging to the crown since 1330, suggests that some of the court may have been housed here. Edward IV gave the manor of Bagshot to his daughter Katherine who married William Earl of Devon. Henry VIII removed it from her upon her husband's death in 1512. John Norden's map of 1607 shows a nearby house, Bagshot House Lodge, set within an enclosed park of 415 acres, which was frequently used by Charles I and James I as a basis for hunting expeditions. This building no longer survives.

The wall murals are unique amongst known surviving later 15th- or early 16th-century examples for their extensiveness.