On your left, look for a dark timber-framed frontage with rectangular leaded windows and a projecting hanging sign: a crooked, storybook survivor set right on George Street.
This is the Old Kings Arms, a fifteenth-century building with Grade Two listed status, which means the state protects it for its special historic character. It has held local attention for decades, not simply as a pub, but as a puzzle of medieval fabric. Researchers from the St Albans Society kept returning to it, drawing floor plans in nineteen seventy-one and again in nineteen ninety-six, sketching its timber framework, even photographing the roof space, as if the building still had secrets tucked between the beams. You can see that slightly uneven, time-worn face for yourself.
Then came the wrangles. In nineteen ninety-seven, someone complained about unauthorised internal works. The council stepped in, granted planning permission and listed-building consent, and later required rectification work to put matters right. Even the hanging sign caused a separate battle: 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. By two thousand and three, officials were still chasing more unauthorised signage.
After closing in the late nineteen nineties and lying dormant for roughly fifteen years, the place returned in twenty fifteen as Dylans at The Kings Arms. Sean Hughes and his family reopened it after the freehold became available, determined to create somewhere they themselves would want to eat and drink close to home. Before that, it had even drifted into life as a French restaurant, so this revival felt like the building reclaiming its own voice.
It stands here now as a rescued old character, still stubborn, still admired. If you fancy returning, it is moderately priced and usually opens from Tuesday, with Mondays closed.
When you are ready, continue on and let the next old inn pick up the thread.
