The Golden Lion Tap Public House

The Golden Lion Tap Public House, Barnstaple

An inn, now public house and restaurant, on the north side of The Square. The building dates from the early to mid 17th century but was substantially remodelled and enlarged during the early to mid 18th century and later. The interior appears to include some imitation 17th-century work.

The front elevation presents a solid rendered wall with a red brick gable set well back. The rear wall of the front block is painted stone rubble, while the front wall of the back block is painted brick with patches of stone rubble. An added rear range to the right is constructed of red brick. The front block now has a flat roof, while the back block features a steeply-pitched slated roof at right-angles to The Square. Parallel to it on the right is a tiled roof over the added range, with a similarly tiled roof covering the room above the carriage entrance. Red brick chimneys punctuate the roofline.

The plan comprises a front block with a central through-passage and a room on either side, with a small projecting stair turret at the rear of the right-hand room. Behind this lies a small courtyard, now glazed over, with a one-room-deep back block beyond. The two blocks are linked on the left side of the courtyard by a gallery in the Devon urban tradition, wide enough to function as a small room. A second courtyard appears to have originally existed behind the back block. To the right of the building is a covered former carriage entrance with arcaded openings on either side, which appears to run beneath the added brick range.

The exterior is of two storeys, possibly with a third storey over the back block. The front elevation shows a four-window range with a fifth window to the right, set back above the carriage entrance. The centre doorway has a moulded architrave and flat moulded hood on shaped brackets, with a three-panelled door featuring a large single flush panel at the bottom. On either side is a flat-roofed canted bay window of five lights with plain wood-framed lower lights containing six-paned sashes with horns, set in recessed box-frames. The larger left-hand window has two-paned side-lights. The front is finished with a parapet having a plain coping, probably of concrete.

The carriage arch to the right has a plank door in a plain wood frame. Above it is a three-light bow window with a top entablature, containing sash windows with six panes in the centre light and two panes in the side lights. The gable of the back block, visible from the opposite side of The Square, features a tall round-arched window, now partly infilled, with the word "BILLIARD" inscribed in black and white lettering on the arch. The added rear range, visible from Diamond Street, has round-arched windows with what appear to be later mullioned and transomed wood casements.

The interior reveals considerable historical layering. The rear of the through-passage contains a mutilated early to mid 17th-century wood door-frame with a square head and ovolo and hollow mouldings with large urn stops. Inside this is a 18th-century round wooden arch with panelled spandrels. The room to the right has old plain ceiling beams, while the room to the left features moulded plaster cornices around most of the walls and ceiling beam. The right-hand upper-storey room contains a gable fireplace with an 18th or 19th-century moulded wood architrave and a round-arched cast-iron basket grate. In its rear wall is a round-arched upper storey window with four-paned sashes.

The back block retains at the left-hand end of its front wall one light of a 16th or 17th-century wood-mullioned window with flat-splay mullions and wood glazing bar. The right-hand ground storey gable wall has a fireplace with a chamfered wood lintel. The carriage entrance to the right features three large round arches with plain imposts to the left, the middle one apparently a dummy backing on to the back block, with one to the right and the surviving impost of another. The room in the added range above contains a large fireplace with a wooden architrave, probably of 18th-century date.