The White Horse Inn Including Nos. 3, 5 And 7 Fore Street

The White Horse Inn including Nos. 3, 5 and 7 Fore Street is a late 18th or early 19th century inn and shop building in Bampton. It consists of two conjoined blocks constructed with limestone blocks, though whitewashed and plastered render obscures this. The roofs are slate with gables at the ends and back, and brick chimney stacks rise from both the main range and eastern block.

The western block, the White Horse Inn itself, is probably of double depth with two front rooms and a central entrance. This three-bay block is taller than its neighbour and features a moulded eaves cornice. The principal entrance is a wide central front door with a rectangular fanlight and decorative glazing bars, sheltered by a flat-roofed open porch carried on thin iron columns. The porch has black stuccoed end pilasters and is surmounted by a free-standing statue of a white horse, which serves as distinctive advertising for the public house. The windows are 16-pane sash windows of 19th century type.

The eastern block contains a large shop to the west and two adjoining houses to the east, each with its own frontage. This three-storey block has a doorway at its extreme eastern end. The shop window and doorway, dating to about the mid-19th century, are flanked by pilasters with brackets supporting a cornice. The four-light shop window features slender columns and segmental arches and is associated with a half-glazed recessed door with rectangular fanlight. The block also contains two ground-floor 12-pane timber sash windows, four first-floor 12-pane sash windows, and on the third floor three sliding sash windows with six panes per light.

Much of Bampton was destroyed by fire during the English Civil War. Following this destruction, numerous houses were rebuilt. Given the building's focal location in the town centre, it is very likely that a structure was erected on this plot in the post-fire period. The building visible today appears externally to date from the late 18th or early 19th century, with alterations made in the late 19th century when the shop front was inserted.

The interior was not inspected at the time of listing.