Cromwell House and former Inn Spital in the Street

Introduction

The photograph on this page of Cromwell House and former Inn Spital in the Street by Jo and Steve Turner as part of the Geograph project.

The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.

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Cromwell House and former Inn Spital in the Street

Image: © Jo and Steve Turner Taken: 10 May 2015

The two Grade II Listed buildings appear to have both been part of the coaching Inn. Described by Bill Head in 1837 as built in the 18th century a sketch shows a further now missing building attached to the north labelled as a Post Office. The sketch is marked 'J Keyworth Spital Commercial Inn & Posting House, Coaches to all parts of the Kingdom'. Pevsner also describes the former inn as L-shaped and surprisingly large. Venables in 1889 tells us it was a private dwelling occupied by a farmer and that in the early 19th century the former Swan Inn was called the Spital Inn but documents sometime after 1574 and in 1598 refer to 'The Swan' on hospital lands. A picture on Wikipedia refers to it as the Ostrich Inn but I can find no further evidence for this name. The listing gives Cromwell House, end on to the road, as 17th century and the adjoining house as early 18th century. It seems reasonable to infer from this that the original inn was Cromwell House and the adjoining house, along the road, was added later to accommodate the coaching inn requirements. The sparse directory entries list; 1856 ‘Wilson D. W. vict., Spittal Inn’; 1868 ‘Sharp William, New inn’. In 1872 White’s directory states it had ‘within the last few years, a large Inn, called Spittal Inn …. now converted into a private dwelling house’.

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Image Location

coordinates on a map icon
Latitude
53.398258
Longitude
-0.547737