Red Lion Hotel

Red Lion Hotel

Inn built in Tudor style with cut hammer-dressed coursed grey limestone walls, slate roofs, and flat eaves on small stone corbels. The building comprises two storeys arranged in two sections, with the right section being three windows wide and featuring large rendered end stacks, and the left section a two-bay structure with a through-arch providing access to the yard.

The right section sits offset to the left, with a raised plinth and cut stone quoins at the right corner, which is chamfered at ground floor level. Windows throughout feature 6-pane late 19th-century sashes with narrow side panes and slightly pointed heads surrounded by stone voussoirs, stone sills, and stone hoodmoulds. A centre Tudor-arched doorway has a slate step, stone voussoirs, and Tudor-arched hoodmould, with a double-panelled door featuring blind Y-tracery in the overlight. The ground floor right window has been replaced by a canted hipped bay window with a broader hoodmould above. The hoodmoulds of the first floor centre and both floors on the right are of squared stone, whilst those to the door and all openings to the left are formed from small stones in a stepped profile. A mounting block of three steps stands to the right of the door. The south end wall is rubble stone with openings on each floor to the right.

The left section, though appearing to be an addition (evident from a straight joint), is likely contemporary and matches the right section. The right bay has a one-window range to match, but with a basement window and hoodmould instead of a plinth. The left bay, forming the throughway to the yard, exemplifies fine stonework, being recessed with flanking walls curved inward, whilst the arch head and floor above step outward, creating different junctions with curves at each level. The ground floor has a full quadrant curve to the jambs of the through-arch. Painted plaques displaying the Lloyd family crest appear on each side of the arch—a lion to the left and a wolf with a spear in its paw to the right, possibly dating from the 17th or 18th century. The arch head, set back from the main wall-face, is a broad Tudor arch carried on large corbels with cut stone voussoirs and a Tudor-arched hoodmould of small stones. The upper level projects on stone corbels at window-sill level, with the wall-face remaining slightly recessed from the main wall-face. Above the corbel table is a flat-headed 4-light window with small-paned Tudor-arched timber horizontally sliding lights, stone voussoirs, and a hoodmould.

The left end wall projects beyond the adjacent Great House and has one small first floor window. Within the arch on each side are large blank recesses with stone voussoirs from which doors, now lost, once opened. The present ground level appears much raised, as the lower gate pintle is 18 inches below the surface.

The rear wall shows varied stonework with boulder stones at first floor level, possibly indicating the incorporation of an older building, and shows no division between the two halves. Three dormers are present, along with a rendered large lateral stack to the left. The first floor has a 2-light mullion-and-transom timber window with small panes to the left, blank wall, a 3-light timber mullion window over the through arch, and a small light to the right with a slab lintel. The ground floor features a through arch to the right—a similar Tudor arch on corbels over rounded jambs—with a door to the right, a 2-light window to the left of the arch, and a modern flat-roofed addition in the angle to the southeast rear wing. Stone voussoirs surround slightly pointed heads, with stone sills below. A low lofted southeast wing is partly obscured by the modern addition. The north side of the ground floor has a window, two doors, and a triple-casement within a 20th-century glazed passage. A date of 1773 is scratched to the right of one door. A triple-casement appears on the first floor right.

Interior

The ground floor follows a three-room plan. A slate-flagged entrance passage leads to a south end room with one beam and a plain plastered cambered-headed fireplace. A heavy oak lintel spans the bay window. The reception or former servery has a canted bay window into the passage with a sliding small-paned window. A dog-leg stair at the back features an oak octagonal newel and thin octagonal balusters. A rear corridor runs behind the long second room, which was originally divided into two rooms. A basement room at the north end contains four axial beams, one of which is reused with a channel for a partition, and has recesses on each side with slate shelves.

The first floor follows a similar arrangement with a rear corridor. A Tudor-arched vault appears behind the chimney, with stair details matching those of the attic stairs. Four rooms occupy the first floor, one positioned over the arch. The third room has a rear-wall fireplace with clustered Gothic shafts, dating from the early 19th century. The attic is framed with big tie-beam-and-collar trusses bolted with wrought-iron staples and triple purlins.

An oddly shaped triangular space exists between the through-arch and the adjacent Great House to the north, containing blocked arches on the party wall with stone voussoirs, including one broad arch and door. Similar voussoirs appear in the arch at the floor above.

The rear wing junction with the main range indicates a complex building history, as the quoins of the rear range appear to intrude into the front range. An oak door provides access to the 2-room rear wing, which has a narrow oak stair, oak beam, and joists. The rear wing loft contains one 19th-century bolted roof truss.