St Albans Audio Tour: Historic Pubs

Stops on this tour

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   The White Lion

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   Look for the refaced frontage, the slightly overhanging first floor, and the White Lion sign that marks this old pub on Sopwell Lane. The White Lion carries itself rather…Read moreShow less

   Look for the refaced frontage, the slightly overhanging first floor, and the White Lion sign that marks this old pub on Sopwell Lane.

   The White Lion carries itself rather modestly, but its bones reach back to the late sixteenth century. Behind that smoother street face sits a timber-framed building, and that little overhang above you is the clue: the upper floor projects slightly over the one below, a very old-fashioned gesture. Historic England protects it as a Grade Two listed building, which simply means it has special historic interest and cannot be altered casually.

   By seventeen thirty-five, people already called this place the White Lion, though the paperwork lets slip an earlier name: the Three Cupps. That same deed reveals something even more intriguing. Part of the premises had served as a meeting house, then a brewhouse, so this address lived more than one life before settling fully into being a pub. In the seventeen forties, Samuel Long, William Wiltshire, Henry Potter and Moses Machorro all appear in the deeds, buying, mortgaging and rearranging it as valuable Sopwell Lane property. If you glance at the image in the app, you can see the street that kept this house commercially tempting for centuries.

   It was not always entirely respectable, either. Local police once disliked the White Lion because its three exits made it wonderfully easy for troublemakers to vanish. Later, landlord David Worcester earned praise from C-A-M-R-A, the Campaign for Real Ale, for the quality of the beer, though in two thousand and fifteen a former landlord still landed in court over a live-music licence breach. These days it remains a moderately priced pub with daily opening from noon until eleven.

   The White Lion proves that a quiet frontage can conceal a remarkably restless past. When you are ready, continue on to the Hare and Hounds.

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   Hare & Hounds

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   On your right, look for a low, plaster-faced timber-framed pub with a long, slightly uneven front and a stout central brick chimney rising above the roof. The Hare and Hounds…Read moreShow less

   

   On your right, look for a low, plaster-faced timber-framed pub with a long, slightly uneven front and a stout central brick chimney rising above the roof.

   The Hare and Hounds likes to keep a little of its age concealed. Historic England protects it as a Grade Two listed building, meaning the law recognises it as specially important, and the basic listing calls it seventeenth century or earlier. Yet later archaeology whispered something even older through the structure itself. Surveyors found a queen-strut roof frame - a pair of upright braces holding the roof up - typical of the seventeenth to early eighteenth century, and they linked that great central chimney to the earliest core of the house.

   After that, the building kept growing as St Albans changed around it. Two bays went on to the east in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century, a south extension arrived in the late nineteenth, and another single-storey addition followed between nineteen twenty-four and nineteen thirty-seven. The app view lets you trace those layers in the stretched shape of the place.

   Its story as a pub carries a small argument. One source places it on maps by sixteen fifty; archaeology can only prove it by seventeen twenty-one. Either way, by the early eighteenth century this was already an old, altered house. More than that, it stood apart on the edge of Sopwell Lane, marking the entrance to St Albans for coach travellers, so it welcomed strangers before it embraced locals.

   A six-figure revival in twenty twenty-three restored it as a much-missed community hub, even as repair work in twenty twenty-four reminded everyone that old timber needs constant care. If you feel like coming back later, it keeps generous daily opening hours and the prices are moderate.

   The Hare and Hounds still feels like a threshold between arrival and belonging.

   From here, carry on to The Old Kings Arms.

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   Dylans at The Kings Arms

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   On your left, look for the black timber frame, the pale infill panels, and the upper storey that projects slightly forward in that unmistakably medieval way. This house has stood…Read moreShow less

   

   On your left, look for the black timber frame, the pale infill panels, and the upper storey that projects slightly forward in that unmistakably medieval way.

   This house has stood on George Street since the fifteenth century, and it wears its age rather beautifully. It holds Grade Two listed status, meaning the building is legally protected for its special historic character. Local researchers kept returning to it, almost as if the place would not stop whispering to them: they drew floor plans in nineteen seventy-one and again in nineteen ninety-six, sketched the timber framework, and even photographed the roof space to record what still survived inside its medieval shell. From the photo, those old timber bones still show through the frontage.

   

   Then came a more combative chapter. In nineteen ninety-seven, someone complained about unauthorised internal works. The council later regularised the changes through planning permission and listed-building consent, which is special approval for altering a protected building, and further rectification followed. Even the hanging sign caused a row: complaints arrived, consent was refused in nineteen ninety-eight, the old sign came down in December nineteen ninety-nine, and a replacement went up in March two thousand. More unauthorised signage surfaced in two thousand and three, and that too had to be removed.

   After closing in the late nineteen nineties, the old pub sat dormant for roughly fifteen years, drifting as far as life as a French restaurant, until Sean Hughes and his family rescued it in twenty fifteen as Dylans at The Kings Arms, a revival rooted in neighbourhood pride and later rewarded with real acclaim.

   It now lives again as a family-run, moderately priced house, usually open from Wednesday to Sunday and on Tuesday evenings. From here, carry on to the Fleur de Lys.

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