Lower George Hotel

Former merchant's house, now a public house. C16, with C18 and early-C19 alterations.

MATERIALS: timber-frame structure, refronted in brick with stone details, stuccoed. Slate roofs and a brick stack. Timber sash windows. Later red brick range to rear.

PLAN: front block with long rear wing.

EXTERIOR: the building is of three storeys, with a cellar, with a hipped roof with a central stack. The principal elevation is four bays wide, composed of a stone plinth, raised and chamfered stone quoins at each corner, stone string courses at the first and second-floor sill levels, a crowning cornice with close-set modillions and a stone-coped parapet. Across the front above the windows on the first floor there is a shallow, framed panel (apparently covering ‘LOWER GEORGE HOTEL’ in raised letters), and on the ground floor above the windows a similar panel which holds the building’s sign.

On the ground floor, to the right there is a doorway with a rectangular fanlight in an opening framed by a moulded and eared stone architrave with a raised keystone in the head. To the left, there are two six-over-six paned sash windows with horns, and further left a wider eight-over-eight pane sash, all in openings with shouldered and eared architraves, keystones in the heads, and projecting stone sills on moulded end-brackets. Each of the upper floors have four windows irregularly spaced in two pairs; all are of a similar size comprising six-over-six panes without horns and in openings with shouldered and eared architraves and raised keystones in the heads. On the first floor, in the centre between the windows, there is a smaller panel similar to the panels above the first and ground-floor windows.

INTERIOR: the ground floor is understood to have been altered in the C20, including its bar fittings. On the upper floors and in the roof exposed timber-framing is understood to survive. The cellar may also retain fabric from the C16 merchant’s house.