The Belfry Hotel

YARCOMBE YARCOMBE ST 20 NW 7/202 The Belfry Hotel - GV II Hotel, former village school. Dated 1872, converted to an hotel circa 1970. Local stone and flint rubble laid to rough courses with Hamstone ashlar detail; stone rubble stacks; red tile roof. Plan: the main block is built across the hillslope and faces south-east. It has a 2-room plan. To rear there are parallel rear blocks, the right (north-eastern) one is a little shorter than the left one. The outer side of this right rear wing is set back a little from the end of the main block and the entrance porch is on this side into the rear block immediately behind the front block. There are lateral stacks to rear of the main block serving both the front and rear blocks. The school was single storey but an upper floor was inserted circa 1970 when it was converted to an hotel. Tudor Gothic style. Exterior: symmetrical 2-window front. The first floor dormer casements are C20 insertions but the ground floor ones are original; Hamstone ashlar, 6 lights with central king mullion and Tudor arch-headed lights. These 2 windows are separated by a buttress and there are diagonal buttresses on the end corners. The roof is gable- ended. Both gables (and those of the rear blocks) have original wavey bargeboards and both gable-ends have large windows with pointed segmental heads and contain a kind of Perpendicular tracery. In the right end there is a plaque carved with the Drake arms above the window and another below which is an inscribed foundation stone; it was laid by Lady Elliot Drake in 1872. To right of this end is the gabled entrance porch; timber-framed on low sleeper walls with a pointed segmental arch still containing the original studded plank door with ornate strap hinges. The sides of the rear blocks have Hamstone windows with Tudor arch-headed lights similar to those at the front and there are large windows in the ends; a segmental pointed arch window with Perpendicular tracery to the right wing and a square headed 5-light window with 2 sets of transoms to the left wing. The front windows contain C20 glass but most of the others contains original diamond panes of leaded glass. Interior: was thoroughly modernised circa 1970 when the upper floor was inserted. The Belfry Hotel is one of an attractive group of listed buildings in the village of Yarcombe.

Listing NGR: ST2449408250