The Angel and Royal High Street

Image: © Jo and Steve Turner Taken: 2 May 2011

Grade I Listed and widely regarded as the oldest surviving English Inn, the main façade of the building that stands today was built approximately 600 years ago. The site then had already been an Inn for 200 years and was built as a hostel for the chivalrous Brotherhood of the Knights Templar. It was then that the building caught the eye of King John who decided it would make a suitable location for a visit of his Royal Court in 1213. An Angel was a common medieval sign that reflected the early connection between religious establishments and a travellers hostel. The Inn was extended in the mid 14th Century and again in the 15th Century. Due to the prime position on the Great North Way (formerly the Ermine Roman Way) the Angel slowly developed to accommodate ever-increasing numbers of wagons and stagecoaches. It was this that most certainly gave the Inn in the last few hundred years its characteristic layout, with its very long courtyard, old stables and entrances to the front and rear. In the Georgian and Victorian period at the Angel they were permitted to remain open as long as they liked until every bed was filled. Up until the middle of the 1800’s the hotel was still classed as an Inn known as The Angel, then following much Royal patronage over the years in 1866 a visit to Grantham by the then Prince of Wales lead to the property getting the second part of its name. It was universally agreed that the visit should be commemorated by the incorporation of “Royal” in the Inn’s name; thus The Angel & Royal came into being but it was not until the early 1920’s that the word Inn was dropped and the building became a hotel. The hotel had a number owners between the second world war and 2002 when it was purchased by a local consortia of business professionals whose intention it was to bring this historic and much loved property back to its former glory. It is now (2013) owned by Ashdale Hotels and a member of the BEST WESTERN brand.

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