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CHESHIRE - Barthomley, White Lion

National Inventory of Historic Pub Interiors Part One

Audley Road, Barthomley, Crewe, CW2 5PG

Tel: 01270 882242

Listed Status: Grade II*

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A splendid half-timbered building dating from 1614 with three rooms and a section of wattle-and-daub on show. The original pub room is the small beamed tap room accessed via the right hand latch door. It has no bar counter - originally beer was served from the parlour through a hatch. The room has some what looks like 1930s half-height panelling and a fitted settle in similar style on the left of a 1930s brick fireplace with a coal fire. This unspoilt room with a solid red-brown floor has fixed bare benches on the front wall side and an assortment of tables including a couple of scrubbed ones. Note the glass covered section of wattle-and-daub on the left hand wall and a mummified rat which came from the loft and discovered by builder when the pub was re-thatched in 1999. A passage on the rear right leads to a door and across the cobbled yard is the outside gents.

The beamed room on the left on a lower level (two steps) has been used as a court room and school room in the past and only became a pub room in the 1930s. It has an old red tiled floor, a bar counter from the 1930s, which could also be the date of the bar back shelves, a 1930s brick fireplace and much older half-height panelling. For 200 years the twice-yearly Court Leet and Court Baron for the Manors of Crewe Green, Barthomley and Leighton. The tiny room at the rear of the pub was converted from private quarters in 1994 and has a flag-like tiled floor, a tiled fireplace with stove and is served from a doorway/hatch to the side of the bar.