Golden Lion Royal Hotel

The Golden Lion Royal Hotel is a complex of buildings, incorporating elements from the 18th and 19th centuries. The main block of the hotel dates to 1839 and is a two-and-a-half-storey, three-bay structure with advanced, single-window, gabled wings. The main facade is constructed of dressed freestone in the central three-window bay, while the wings are of coursed rubble. The building has gently pitched slate roofs with deep plastered eaves and bargeboards returning to form open pediments over the advanced wings. Stone stacks with moulded caps and water tabling are present. Three hipped, slate-hung dormers are set into the roof over the central bay, and a deep modern nameboard is set under the eaves. The central bay has a fixed six-pane light at the top and two-light casements flanking it. The gable ends of the advanced bays feature shallow upper sashes to nine-pane windows. Five sixteen-pane sash windows are situated on the first floor with stone lintels; the central one is obscured by a later hotel sign. A sill band runs along the central bay. The ground floor of the advanced bays has similar sixteen-pane sashes. Three segmental arches, originally forming an arcade, lead to the central bay and are now glazed with early 20th-century, three-light transomed windows featuring Art Nouveau leaded lights. A doorway is located to the left.

Adjacent to the main block is an 18th-century house, possibly once known as Plas Issa, which is two storeys and three windows in width with rubble masonry and a steeply pitched quarry slate roof. It has tall, square stone stacks with moulded caps and water tabling, and twelve-pane sash windows with stone lintels and flush stone sills on both the first and ground floors. The original central doorway has been partially blocked and replaced with a twelve-pane fixed-light window. A single-storey lean-to outshut extends from the extreme left of the 1839 block, featuring a segmental arch-headed sixteen-pane sash window. The return side elevation of this outshut has two hipped dormers and two sixteen-pane sashes.

Another 18th-century house adjoins the main block to the left, with a moderately pitched quarry slate roof, plain eaves, a rendered stone end stack with water tabling, and two twelve-pane sash windows under the eaves on the first floor. Modern accretions obscure parts of the left end and ground floor.

The rear elevation includes an 18th-century house to the extreme left, with two hipped stone dormers in the attic and later casements. A two-storey, hipped staircase bay sits centrally, with a nineteenth-century sash window. Modern extensions are present to the left and right. The central block of 1839 has a pedimented gable to the left, with three dormers mirroring the front. A shallow upper sash is set in the nine-pane sash window in the gable. It has four sixteen-pane sashes on the first floor. Paved doorways are at ground-floor level below the gable, with a modern extension to the right. A contemporary kitchen wing is adjoined at right angles to the right end, and the overall plan is cruciform. It has a moderately pitched slate roof, plain eaves, close verges, a hipped dormer to the east side near the main block, deep plastered eaves, a twelve-pane sash window, a central lateral stack with a gablet, and flanking twelve-pane sashes (partly obscured). A similar gablet is on the west side with outshots to the sides. Victorian sash windows are set under the eaves. Blocked windows are present on the ground floor.

Further contemporary service buildings and a stable yard adjoin to the west, largely altered, modernised or derelict.