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Andrew Swift and Kirsten Elliott's pub and beer blog 'Awash with Ale' features the Bell renovation works this month - with some new historical cuttings & some great photos.

www.awashwithale.co.uk/

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This three-gabled building (French Connection in Green Street) is roughly what The Bell would have looked like before 1730 or so.

And this is what the rear of Ladymead House looked like in the 17th century (painting found in the attic of Ladymead House, and now at the Victoria Gallery). Ladymead House was extended to the front in the 19th century, and was an asylum for the reform of prostitutes. Spoilsports. The name, 'Ladymead' was a corruption of 'Law-Day Meadow', because open-air, travelling assizes were held there once a year since early medieval times or before, to decide on issues before a dedicated court was built in the High Street.

I don't know why I hadn't noticed this over the years, but what with all the rain and being forced to stand outside to smoke these days, I looked up to the inside of the main door the other day and noticed that the inner header has a shallow curve for an arch, and this was the original opening before they put the new facade up around 1740.

It looks as though the doorway may have had a slightly rounded top, and because of the angle of the jambs either side of it (before the left one was blocked to form the lobby) the door was split into two as it is now, and lay flush and out of the way against the bevelled jambs when open.

I will drill a little hole into it at some point to see if it is wood or stone.

Could it be possible that the gable would have been on the side and not the end. The photo in Awash With Ale shows different stonework in that area?

Hello Dan,

There was - most likely - a single gable on the end as there is now. The three top windows on the front mark the centres of the gables as they were before the fair-faced facade was put up around 1740, at which time it was 'modernised', which included the destruction of the gables and the re-alignment of the roof structure to a single pitch.

The side wall is indeed different stone - or at least rubble rather than ashlar - because it dates from the late 17th century, and the front wall is so thick because the 'new' front was simply put up against the old one.

Behind (and hidden by) the new sign on the end, there is a small casement window from around the late 1600s. You can see others if you stand on the steps leading up to the 'Love Lounge' (I wish someone would change that silly name!) and look up to the main, original core of the building (blackened by Victorian coal-smoke) you can see other identical 17th century casement windows, which are all in exactly the same line as the one hidden by the new sign.

The Victorian extensions on the back are the newest bit of the pub, which goes back a lot further the the 18th century front would suggest.