Kings Arms Hotel (EHER 36658)

16th to 17th century timber-framed inn. It was recorded in 2019 in advance of refurbishment.

2019. Building survey. The historic background and descriptive record of the Kings Arms set out in the preceding sections has been informed by a site visit and documentary research. This has established that the building probably originates in the 16th or 17th centuries, possibly as a farm house, although it is considered most likely that it was always intended to function as an inn. It is described as the ‘Kings Arms Inn’ on the Tithe Map Apportionment of 1842, this being the earliest known documentary record. The original building comprised two ranges, both constructed around timber frames, one of which was probably a box frame, and like many of the 16th and 17th century in the surrounding village, may have originally been finished in plaster. Other than the timber frame, the only other probable original feature is a tall chimney stack on the south side of the building which has characteristics that suggest it predates the Victorian part of the building and may have also been constructed in the 16th or 17th centuries. It is not clear, on current evidence, whether the original building would have been built in two phases, and what these were, but it is unusual that the ranges are set at an oblique angle from each other rather than at right angles. Indeed the 1842 Tithe Map shows a more regular arrangement with the two ranges at right angles to each other and it is possible to speculate that the two ranges were re-aligned when the building was redesigned in the Victorian period. If this was the case then it is presumed that, due to the in-situ chimney stack on the south elevation, which is considered likely to have been part of the original building, that it was Range 2 that has had its position shifted. It is clear that the building was heavily altered in the mid to late 19th century (most probably in the 1860s or 1870s) when it was extended and externally and internally re-designed to form a typical Victorian public house and hotel, with the facilities that would be expected of such a building, and which occupied a prominent position at the centre of the village. It is likely that the building’s external brick structure dates from this period, although this may have replaced an older external brick skin. This renovation was probably designed to bring the public house up to the Victorian standard for such buildings, and may also have been a response to greater local accommodation needs due to the nearby railway station. The 19th century renovations almost certainly included the construction of new chimney stacks and re-roofing. Certainly, the addition of multiple extensions would have required a re-configuration of the relationships between the building’s roofs and it may be that this was taken as an opportunity to re-roof the whole building. The tiled roofs of the building’s ranges are all of a similar appearance and, although the older parts of the building do display original timbers as wall plates, some of the exposed purlins and rafters (such as those in Range 1) appear to be later, machine cut timbers, suggesting that some degree of substantial re-roofing work has occurred. <1> <2>