The former King's Arms Inn, Pickering, North Yorkshire

Summary

Former longhouse, probably of early C17 origin, significantly altered as an inn around 1800 and divided into two houses in 2003.

Description

Former longhouse, redeveloped as an inn, now two houses. Probably early C17 in origin, with significant alteration probably around 1800, perhaps 1812, further alterations in 2003.

MATERIALS: mainly coursed local sandstone rubble, but including some early C19 brickwork. Some sections are rendered. Pan tile roofs.

PLAN: a longhouse with a rebuilt, enlarged byre-end (probably circa 1812) now forming The Old Kings Head whose staircase occupies the site of the original hearth passage. The former domestic end of the longhouse now forms Kings Head Cottage, this being of two bays, widened (probably late C18) on the north side to double depth.

EXTERIOR: south, bordering the churchyard: this was the original front elevation to the longhouse. The domestic end of the longhouse (Kings Head Cottage) is rendered and forms two low, broad bays at the west end of the range. Windows are low and broad beneath timber lintels, the joinery being vertical sliding sashes of renewed timber, each sash being divided into a row of four panes, the ground floor windows being slightly wider.

The next two bays eastwards form The Old Kings Head, the rebuilt byre end of the longhouse. This is of two tall storeys and is also rendered. The original main entrance to the longhouse, to the cross passage to the rear of the main hearth, is now reduced to a sash window. To the right is a large tripartite sash window protected with a set of C19 iron railings. Both of these windows have timber lintels. The western of the two first floor windows is slightly wider than the eastern; both have late C20 timber sashes. The western gable of The Old Kings Head is raised and coped and has an C18 shaped kneeler and the eastern end of the house is marked by a broad, four-flue chimney stack that retains C19 brickwork to its lower portion. The two bays to the east of this ridge stack form Willowdene: a separate property that is not included in the listing.

West gable, Kings Head Cottage: this is not rendered and is built of roughly coursed, pale coloured rubble stone. It retains evidence of two small blocked windows to the first floor and a rough vertical joint marking the ground floor widening to the north. The single window is reconfigured from a former doorway. Render from the north elevation is partly carried around the corner to imitate quoining. The gable is raised and coped and has renewed kneelers. The two gable stacks, which survived in 1982, have been lost.

West Gable, Old Kings Head: this is exposed above the roof line of Kings Head Cottage. It is brick-built and stone-quoined and has a projecting chimney stack rising from the ridge of the cottage, serving the main hearth in the former domestic end. There is a single opening: a small attic window with modern joinery.

North: this is the current front elevation. The north elevation of Kings Head cottage is mainly single storey, being rendered and blind except for a single doorway enlarged from an earlier window. Rising above the eastern bay of the original longhouse is a large, weather-boarded dormer under a cat-slide roof.

The Old Kings Head is not rendered. It has a low doorway to the west and a small projection for an outside toilet to the east. Between there is a large tripartite sash window and a small, low sash window. Below the tripartite window there is an opening to the cellar. There are two sash windows to the first floor, that above the door being very narrow. All of the window joinery post-dates 1982.

INTERIOR:
Kings Head Cottage: this retains the upper portions of one pair of cruck blades, with evidence that the upper portions of a second pair are embedded in an internal wall. High-set collar or saddle pieces for both of these cruck pairs are expected to survive concealed within the roof space. On the ground floor, the two rooms which formed the domestic end of the original longhouse retain beamed ceilings supporting the early floorboards of the upper floor. The main beam in the eastern room is chamfered, the chamfers finishing with a step and runout stop typical of the early C17. A recess in the wall marks the former access to the original cross passage that is now part of The Old Kings Head. An C18, corner-set cast iron fireplace in the current entrance hall is considered to be original, although now disused as the chimney has been removed.

Old Kings Head: this retains an C18 or early C19 six panelled door to the cellar sited within the former cross passage to the longhouse. Other internal doors, although also generally six panelled, appear to be later. On the first floor, at the head of the stairs, there is an internal window for borrowed light featuring diagonal slats reminiscent of Chinese designs by Chippendale. The two first floor bedrooms each retain hob grates set beneath moulded mantle shelves flanked by built-in cupboards. The roof structure is of hewn timbers with staggered purlins pegged to the principal rafters.

History

Number 1 Willowgate, now subdivided into The Old Kings Head and Kings Head Cottage, was built as a cruck-framed longhouse, probably in the early C17 judging by the form of the chamfer stops on a beam in Kings Head Cottage. The relatively insubstantial nature of the cruck blades indicate that when originally built, the property was relatively modest and of low status, the position of the blades also indicating that the longhouse was originally a single storey. It was probably heightened to two stories in the C18, the south elevation being given relatively large windows that were evenly distributed, even though this meant that the eastern windows cut across the line of one of the crucks. The building is recorded in a relatively large number of surviving deeds with nine separate deeds dated between 1756 and 1798, with a further seven deeds up to 1861. In 1756 and subsequently it was occupied by a yeoman, John Ness of Pickering and then from 1779 until 1796, by a weaver Richard Postgate. In the late 1790s it became an inn, The King’s Arms, the name it retained through the C19. It is not known when the property changed its name to The Kings Head. The domestic end of the longhouse was widened on the ground floor on the northern side, probably in two stages, the room now forming the small entrance hall being the earliest, probably added in the C18. Subsequently the byre end was rebuilt as a two storey building, the staircase being placed in the former hearth passage, rising from the main entrance that opened onto the churchyard to the south. The western end of the building (now part of Willowdene and not included in the listing) was used as a brewhouse and stables. This rebuilding work may have been funded via a £250 mortgage raised on the property in 1812 when the innkeeper was Richard Warwick. This was almost certainly the same R Warwick recorded on an 1814 date stone on the detached range to the north which included a first floor assembly room – this detached range is also not included in the listing. However it is possible that this rebuilding work occurred earlier because the York Courant for 9 December 1811 advertised the sale of the freehold of the King’s Arms Inn, noting the inclusion of a brew house, outbuildings, and stables. Adverts for the sale of the King’s Arms Inn were also published in the York Herald 10 January 1829, and the Yorkshire Gazette on the 27 June 1840 and 4 Nov 1848. The building was marked as an inn on the 1:2,500 Ordnance Survey map, but not on the next edition, published 1928. In 1982 the building range was inspected and recorded by the Royal Commission for Historic Monuments England (RCHME). Following the granting of Listed Building Consent in 2003, the former inn was altered both internally and externally to subdivide it into two properties: the older portion forming Kings Head Cottage, the early C19 portion forming The Old Kings Head.

Reasons for Listing

Kings Head Cottage and The Old Kings Head are included together on the List at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as an example of a vernacular, C17 longhouse that was upgraded in stages before the mid-C19, this evolution being readable from surviving features, plan form and building fabric;

Historic interest:

* the names and occupations of a number of occupiers of the building are documented from 1756 onwards in surviving deeds and newspaper entries.

External Links

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