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.
