Look for the dark timber frame with pale plaster panels, a slightly overhanging upper storey, and a long red-tiled roof pressed above the narrow frontage.
The Old Kings Arms carries its age rather plainly: a fifteenth-century building, Grade Two listed, which means it has legal protection for its special historic character. Local researchers treated it almost like an unsolved case. The St Albans Society kept plans from nineteen seventy-one and nineteen ninety-six, plus a sketch of the internal framework and photographs taken up in the roof space, all in an effort to record what medieval structure still survived. If you glance at the image on your screen, you can see why.
But admiration was only half the story. Pub names and signs are how a place introduces itself to the street; they hold memory in public view. And here, even that became a civic quarrel. In nineteen ninety-seven, someone complained about unauthorised internal works - changes made without the proper permission for a protected building. The council eventually regularised them through planning permission and listed-building consent, then ordered follow-up rectification. The hanging sign sparked a sharper dispute: two complaints in nineteen ninety-seven, refusals in nineteen ninety-eight, the old sign removed in December nineteen ninety-nine, and a replacement put up in March two thousand. Even in two thousand and three, more unauthorised signage had to be removed.
Then Sean Hughes stepped in. When he and his family reopened the long-shuttered building in twenty fifteen as Dylans at The Kings Arms, after the freehold became available in twenty fourteen, he said he wanted somewhere he would genuinely enjoy within walking distance of home. So tell me: when a historic pub changes its face, who truly gets the final word - owner, council, or the locals who read themselves into it? Keep that question with you as we continue to the Fleur de Lys, about two minutes away. If you return later, note that it keeps fairly limited weekday hours and sits at a moderate price point.
