The Hobgoblin Public House

The Hobgoblin Public House is a late 18th-century public house, likely designed by John Palmer, situated at the end of a terrace in St James's Parade. The building’s unusual plan forms a trapezoid where St James's Parade and Lower Borough Walls converge. A single-storey, bowed porch was added in the late 19th century.

The three-story building, with an attic and basement, presents a main front of three windows with sash glazing. Dormers are visible above a blind light, and the first floor features twelve-pane sashes with a Palladian window to the left, distinguished by brackets supporting the sill. The ground floor has paired sashes to the right and a smaller sash to the left, set within an unpainted ashlar doorcase featuring swags and urns in low relief. Architectural details include a plinth, platband, modillion cornice, blocking course, and a parapet. The mansard roof is hipped to the left and features a deep ashlar stack. The building is raised slightly above the adjacent property at No. 46.

The returned end shows a small canted section and a bowed porch with a central door flanked by deep two-pane windows and fielded panel stall risers, all topped by a coped parapet. A return to Lower Borough Walls has a Doric doorcase with a six-panel door alongside a window with a joined sill to the head. An eaves stack is located to the right.

The ground floor interior has been extensively altered. A previous inspection revealed an Adamesque ceiling frieze and dado on the first floor. Historcially, St James’s Parade, initially known as Thomas Street, was developed from 1765 onwards, featuring a paved walk replacing a road and initially fronting houses influenced by the work of John Wood the Younger. The building is a later addition to this streetscape, having previously been named The Talbot.