The Golden Lion Hotel

The Golden Lion Hotel comprises a late 18th-century rebuilding of a 17th-century inn, located in Weymouth, Dorset. It consists of a shallow front range facing St Edmund Street, connected to a more substantial return wing fronting St Mary Street. The St Edmund Street elevation is constructed of painted Flemish bond brickwork, with a tile or slate roof. It has three storeys and an attic, displaying three windows. The upper floors feature a mix of 12-pane and 8:12:8-pane glazing-bar sash windows set in flush boxes. The second floor includes a 12-pane window flanked by bold, canted oriels with 16:16:16-pane sashes, each adorned with a dentil cornice and deep skirt. A broad elliptical blind oculus sits centrally above the oriels. The ground floor has a small sash oriel on wooden brackets and a tripartite sash without bars. A central, wide 6-panel door is set within panelled reveals, a moulded architrave, and a half-pilaster case topped with a dentilled entablature; above the door is a square pedestal carrying a gilded lion. A ridge stack is located on the left end. The front elevation features a plinth and plain bands at the first and second floors, capped by a plain eaves band, which is returned to the right, where a hipped end has a central eaves stack and a 12-pane sash window at ground and second floors, with a blind light at the first floor. The return range in St Mary Street has a wide-span slate mansard roof with three flat-roofed dormers, two of which have double sash windows. Four 12-pane sashes are set in reveals at the first and second floors. The ground floor includes a tripartite display window with fascia and cornice, a large tripartite sash with some glazing bars, an arched doorway with a part-glazed door, and a pair of doors leading to two deep steps. The exposed right gable has two openings to a steel escape stair. The interior has been substantially subdivided for hotel use, and retains little original detail. Remnants of early ceiling beams and joists are visible on the ground floor facing St Edmund Street, with the ceiling level significantly below the window heads, likely reflecting the scale of an earlier building on the site. The St Mary Street range previously had external stacks, which no longer exist.