The Lamb Hotel, now known as Chatterton House, is a former public house in Nantwich

Nantwich

Nantwich is a market town and civil parish in the Borough of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. The town gives its name to the parliamentary constituency of Crewe and Nantwich...

, Cheshire

Cheshire

Cheshire is a ceremonial county in North West England. Cheshire's county town is the city of Chester, although its largest town is Warrington. Other major towns include Widnes, Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Winsford, Northwich, and Wilmslow...

, England. It is located on the north side of Hospital Street, at the junction with Church Lane (at ). The present building by Thomas Bower

Thomas Bower

Thomas Bower was an English architect and surveyor based in Nantwich, Cheshire. He worked in partnership with Ernest H. Edleston at the Nantwich firm, Bower & Edleston, which he founded in 1854. He is particularly associated with the Gothic Revival style of architecture.In 1883, Bower was living...

 dates from 1861 and is listed at grade II; Nikolaus Pevsner

Nikolaus Pevsner

Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner, CBE, FBA was a German-born British scholar of history of art and, especially, of history of architecture...

 describes it as "decent" and "staid".

It stands on the site of an inn of the same name dating from 1554. The original building was rebuilt after the fire of 1583, and served as the headquarters of the Parliamentarian

Roundhead

"Roundhead" was the nickname given to the supporters of the Parliament during the English Civil War. Also known as Parliamentarians, they fought against King Charles I and his supporters, the Cavaliers , who claimed absolute power and the divine right of kings...

 forces during the Civil War

English Civil War

The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...

. By the 17th century, the Lamb was the second-largest inn of the town. It remained a public house until the 21st century, serving additionally as the town's post office and excise office.

After major rebuilding completed in 2006, the building is now used for a mixture of residential and commercial purposes, including shops, cafés and apartments.

History

On 17 July 1554, William Chatterton was granted a licence by Mary I

Mary I of England

Mary I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death.She was the only surviving child born of the ill-fated marriage of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Her younger half-brother, Edward VI, succeeded Henry in 1547...

 to keep a tavern in his house, Lamb Mansion, and "to sell there wines by retail as freely as he might have done before the Act of 7 Edward VI and grant that no person shall retail wines in the said town". Formerly in the service of Edward VI

Edward VI of England

Edward VI was the King of England and Ireland from 28 January 1547 until his death. He was crowned on 20 February at the age of nine. The son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, Edward was the third monarch of the Tudor dynasty and England's first monarch who was raised as a Protestant...

, Chatterton was groom-in-ordinary to Mary I. The Hospital Street address for the Lamb was stated in a document of 1575.

The original building was lost in the fire of 1583, which destroyed much of the centre of the town, including the town end of Hospital Street. The Lamb is not among the seven named "Innes for lodging" recorded as having been burned, as the building at that date was being used as a house by James Bullen. Bullen had become the tenant in 1569; he was a cutler

Cutlery

Cutlery refers to any hand implement used in preparing, serving, and especially eating food in the Western world. It is more usually known as silverware or flatware in the United States, where cutlery can have the more specific meaning of knives and other cutting instruments. This is probably the...

 and kept a shop next door. The house cost £58 6s 8d to rebuild, of which £18 6s 8d came from the town rebuilding fund. It was not completed before Bullen's death in 1585, the final installment from the fund being paid to his son, Thomas.

The headquarters of the Parliamentarian

Roundhead

"Roundhead" was the nickname given to the supporters of the Parliament during the English Civil War. Also known as Parliamentarians, they fought against King Charles I and his supporters, the Cavaliers , who claimed absolute power and the divine right of kings...

 forces, led by Sir William Brereton

Sir William Brereton, 1st Baronet

Sir William Brereton, 1st Baronet was an English writer and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1628 and 1659. He was a commander in the Parliamentary army in the English Civil War....

, were at the inn during the Civil War

English Civil War

The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...

. The building was reinforced with earth walls against cannon fire. In 1664, the Lamb was the second-largest inn in Nantwich, after the Crown

Crown Hotel, Nantwich

The Crown Hotel, also known as the Crown Inn, is a timber-framed, black-and-white hotel and public house located at 24–26 High Street in the town of Nantwich in Cheshire, England. The present building dates from shortly after 1583...

 on the High Street; it had eight hearths. The site was licensed as a public house without interruption from 1693 until the 21st century. From 1691 until the 1850s it also served as the town's post office, and was also at one point the excise office. From 1737 until 1853, the town's fire engine house also stood immediately behind the inn, and the fire engine presumably made use of the Lamb's horses, with three stables on Church Lane recorded as belonging to the inn in 1794. In the 18th century, the Lamb was one of three inns on Hospital Street and 34 in the town.
The present building dates from 1861 and was designed by Nantwich architect, Thomas Bower

Thomas Bower

Thomas Bower was an English architect and surveyor based in Nantwich, Cheshire. He worked in partnership with Ernest H. Edleston at the Nantwich firm, Bower & Edleston, which he founded in 1854. He is particularly associated with the Gothic Revival style of architecture.In 1883, Bower was living...

. The Lamb Hotel is described in an 1874 directory as a "Commercial Inn and Posting House", one of two in the town (the other being the Crown). Around 1900, the inn was still providing horses for the fire engine, even though the engine house had by then moved to Pillory Street. It remained in use as a public house until 2002.

In 2004, the Lamb Hotel was derelict; major rebuilding during 2004–6 converted the building to shops, cafés and apartments, retaining only the façade and front portion of the original building.

Description

The former Lamb Hotel is a large corner building, in red brick with stone dressings under a slate roof. The main three-storey building has slightly projecting end two-bay sections and a central three-bay section. The two end bays have decorative stone quoins

Quoin (architecture)

Quoins are the cornerstones of brick or stone walls. Quoins may be either structural or decorative. Architects and builders use quoins to give the impression of strength and firmness to the outline of a building...

 at the ground-floor level. There are stone bands between ground and first floors, and first and second floors.

The windows of the three-storey building have moulded stone surrounds. The ground-floor windows have stone sills, arched tops and keystone

Keystone (architecture)

A keystone is the wedge-shaped stone piece at the apex of a masonry vault or arch, which is the final piece placed during construction and locks all the stones into position, allowing the arch to bear weight. This makes a keystone very important structurally...

s with decorative motifs, including a lamb's head. The first-floor windows have stone cornice

Cornice

Cornice molding is generally any horizontal decorative molding that crowns any building or furniture element: the cornice over a door or window, for instance, or the cornice around the edge of a pedestal. A simple cornice may be formed just with a crown molding.The function of the projecting...

s; the central window at this level, above the portico, has three lights. The central bay has a portico

Portico

A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls...

 with Tuscan

Tuscan order

Among canon of classical orders of classical architecture, the Tuscan order's place is due to the influence of the Italian Sebastiano Serlio, who meticulously described the five orders including a "Tuscan order", "the solidest and least ornate", in his fourth book of Regole generalii di...

 columns flanking the main entrance, which is reached by a low flight of stone steps and features an arched head.
At the west (left) side, a narrow four-storey wing is attached. In the original Bower design, this section was capped with a high concave roof to form a tower; this was demolished in 1937 and the wing is now completed with a brick parapet

Parapet

A parapet is a wall-like barrier at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony or other structure. Where extending above a roof, it may simply be the portion of an exterior wall that continues above the line of the roof surface, or may be a continuation of a vertical feature beneath the roof such as a...

. The windows in this bay all have brick surrounds; the two first-floor windows and single second-floor window have arched tops, while the third-storey window has a horizontal top. It has a covered passageway with a horizontal stone top leading to a yard, which was preserved in the redevelopment. The original passage entrance had an arched top, matching the windows; this was altered some time after 1914. The stone bands from the main section continue, and are repeated between the second and third storeys.

Most of the Church Lane (east) face dates from the 21st-century redevelopment; it is similar in style to the front façade.

Modern use

Now known as Chatterton House, after the first landlord, the building is used for a variety of purposes including cafés and shops on the ground floor, with residential apartments in the upper storeys.

Sources

• Garton E. Nantwich, Saxon to Puritan: A History of the Hundred of Nantwich, c 1050 to c 1642 (Johnson & Son Nantwich; 1972) (ISBN 0950273805)
• Garton E. Nantwich in the 18th Century: A Study of 18th Century Life and Affairs (Cheshire County Council; 1978)
• Garton E. Tudor Nantwich: A Study of Life in Nantwich in the Sixteenth Century (Cheshire County Council; 1983) (ISBN 0 0903017 05 9)
• Hall J. A History of the Town and Parish of Nantwich, or Wich Malbank, in the County Palatine of Chester (2nd edn) (E. J. Morten; 1972) (ISBN 0-901598-24-0)
• Lake J. The Great Fire of Nantwich (Shiva Publishing; 1983) (ISBN 0 906812 57 7)
• Lamberton A, Gray R. Lost Houses in Nantwich (Landmark Publishing; 2005) (ISBN 1 84306 202 X)
• Pevsner N, Hubbard E. The Buildings of England: Cheshire (Penguin Books; 1971) (ISBN 0 14 071042 6)
• Stevenson PJ. Nantwich: A Brief History and Guide (1994)
• Vaughan D. Nantwich: It Was Like This (Nantwich Museum; 1987)
• Whatley A. Nantwich in Old Picture Postcards: 1880–1930, plate 70 (European Library; 1992) (ISBN 90 288 5380 4)