Rose And Crown Public House Rose And Crown Public House And Attached Stable Block

Rose and Crown Public House and Attached Stable Block

A public house with attached stable block on the east side of Market Place, Chippenham. The main building dates from the 14th to 15th centuries with substantial alterations and additions spanning the 16th to 20th centuries. A floor was inserted into the hall in the 16th century, and most of the original timber-frame was replaced by stone walling during the 17th century. An early 19th-century left wing and late 19th-century stables were subsequently added.

The building is constructed of limestone rubble with freestone plinth and dressings, topped with a coped parapet of 18th-century English-bond brick. The roof is of stone slate with brick stacks positioned at the right gable end, centre ridge, and rear gable end of the rear wing. The early 19th-century left wing is of ashlar with a double-Roman gambrel roof.

The plan follows a medieval 2-unit through-passage arrangement with a rear right wing and early 19th-century left wing. The exterior presents two storeys with a three-window range to the front. To each side are slightly-projecting early 17th-century bays with drip-moulds over timber lintels marking the former positions of stone-mullioned windows. The left bay on the first floor retains some hollow-moulded mullions of a 6 or 7-light window, now blocked with 18th-century paired 3/6-pane sash windows in forward frames. A triple window below has similar sashes. The narrower right-hand bay contains paired windows to the ground floor and 19th-century horned 2/2-pane sash windows above. Over the right-of-centre 20th-century double doors is a timber lintel with a 20th-century window. The parapet follows the contour of the facade.

The gable end of the right return in Lords Lane displays exposed timber-framing to the first floor, including a blocked 5-light window with chamfered mullions and a stepped corbelled-out rubblestone base supporting a reconstructed external first-floor brick stack. The projecting ground floor is weathered and contains a later stack. The rear right wing in Lords Lane features a central ridge stack, timber lintels to a leaded 2-light first-floor window above a 19th-century triple 2/2-pane sash window with an ashlar apron, possibly formerly wide doors. The quoin to the north-west corner changes above the first floor, and an exposed cruck to the south-west gable end with a shallower pitched roof above indicates a re-fronting of a former timber-framed structure. Mortices for purlins in the cruck suggest the wing is truncated. Tradition holds that the entrance was formerly at the rear.

The early 19th-century left wing features a yellow brick stack to the front slope of the right gable end, a platband, 19th-century paired 3/6-pane sash windows to the first-floor right, and a 20th-century simulated 3/6-pane window blocked below the sill on the left, probably marking a former loading bay. Three similar 20th-century windows address the ground floor. To the left is a chamfered architrave to a blocked door. The left return is plain with 20th-century timber stairs to the first floor.

The stable block is attached to the rear: a mid to late 19th-century L-shaped stable range forming a courtyard to the left. It is of rubblestone with brick architraves and a double-Roman tile roof. A repositioned datestone of 1694 may mark the date of refronting with bays.

The interior demonstrates evidence of a former medieval timber-framed hall house. The through passage, screened to the right, is flanked by chamfered beams. The right beam has holes for wattles toward the front and slots, probably for a former plank-and-muntin screen, to the rear, supporting the theory that the entrance was once at the front. The service end to the right has rough flat joists to the floor of a first-floor heated solar, the 17th-century chimney-breast of which is corbelled out in Lords Lane. The 16th-century joists of the former hall to the left imply it was floored later. A main roll-stopped chamfered cross-beam, formerly supported by the timber-frame, is suspended behind the 17th-century bay window. The front range, including the medieval hall, is known to have a cruck roof, though access was not possible for inspection.