Photographs courtesy of CN Museum of Local History
End of the road for historic inn?
Reprinted from the Chipping
Norton
News.
The closure of the White Hart marks the
end of a long story. Inns like the White Hart will have existed around
Chipping Norton’s market place ever since the lord of the manor, William
Fitzalan, laid it out in the early 13th century. No one knows
exactly when the White Hart was established but its name derives from the
badge of Richard II who reigned from 1377 to 1399. For a brief period the
manor of Chipping Norton was held by the king before being given to a new
lord. Perhaps this is when the White Hart got its name.
Like other buildings in the market place
it has been altered and rebuilt several times. Recent archaeological
investigation suggests that there was some activity on the site as early
as the 12th century but little is known about it. The oldest
part of the present building is part of an open gallery running up one
side of the yard which seems to date from the 16th century.
Most of the rest was extensively rebuilt in the 18th century.
(If you look up at the lead rainwater heads above the balcony you will see
the date.) The front facing High Street was restored in the 1930s
preserving the 18th century style except for closing the
original archway leading through to the rear yard, and there have been
extensive internal alterations in the later 20th century.
The plan of the White Hart is typical of
many inns of the 17th and 18th centuries with the
main public rooms and bedrooms at the front and an archway leading through
to a courtyard surrounded by service rooms with smaller bedrooms and the
open gallery above. In private houses at this time members of a family
passed through each bedroom to reach the next, but in a hotel more privacy
was needed and this was provided by an external gallery with doors to each
bedroom. The remains of a timber-framed gallery at the White Hart is an
important survival.
Even more interesting than the
architecture is the human history of the building (- or even its
inhuman history: there have been several reports of ghosts haunting
the bedrooms). Members of the Chipping Norton Historical Research Group
and students in a class studying Chipping Norton in the 17th
century have discovered several inventories describing the furniture and
equipment of this inn during the 17th century.
(See
FEATURE ARTICLE) Among many other
items they list a number of four-post beds with curtains. One magnificent
example of these survived until the closure but has since been sent to a
London saleroom. In 1633 among the metal items ranging from brass pans and
cooking pots to candlesticks were ‘one dozen pewter chamber pots’(perhaps
the equivalent of en suite facilities today?). They also list the contents
of the cellars: ‘seven hogsheads & a halfe fule of beare’ together with ‘sacke’,
brandy, French wine and sherry. There are interesting names to the
bedrooms - The Queen’s Arms Chamber, the Great Chamber, the Gatehouse
Chamber, the Worcester Chamber and the Hereford Chamber etc.
Henry Cornish, founder of the almshouses
and long-serving member of the Corporation, owned the White Hart in the
early 17th century (though he did not run it). When he died in
1646 he left money to provide an annual civic dinner known as the
Bailiffs’ Feast to be held there. In the 18th century the
Corporation often chose to hold meetings there. Their official residence
was the Guildhall but they preferred to meet in several of the town’s
inns, especially the White Hart, making the excuse that the Guildhall was
dilapidated. At one such meeting in 1728 William Wilcox was granted the
freedom to trade within the borough on payment of the usual fees and 10
shillings ‘to treat the chamber’, with a note in the margin of the minute
book which says ‘snuff and gin’. In 1745 it was the scene of the notorious
election riot when Whig supporters attacked it while the Tories were
holding a dinner there, setting fire to the inn sign in an attempt to burn
down the gate across the archway.
The White Hart has been part of Chipping
Norton’s history for a very long time. Sadly it has been neglected in
recent years and is now to be converted from a hotel to shops and
residential units. However, it can be argued that while the town sorely
needs accommodation for visitors, permanent residents to patronise the
shops and be part of the local community are even more valuable, and the
tasteful conversion of the building is to include the restoration of the
original archway so that its appearance may actually be improved by the
change. Perhaps it’s not the end of the road, just a change of direction.
David Eddershaw
