Reading a Somerset country inn

A country inn often has a familiar outline from the road. Stop at two Somerset examples and the differences become more interesting than the resemblance. In Ditcheat, additions changed the face of a village pub. In Norton St Philip, two floors project above a doorway once used by travellers coming in from the street.

Ditcheat, from one end of the frontage to the other

At the Manor House Inn, start with the windows. One group has pointed heads. Another has upright stone divisions separating the panes. Historic England describes late eighteenth-century brickwork and a mid-nineteenth-century addition, and attributes the two sets of details to different architectural fashions. The doors repeat the contrast on a smaller scale. One follows a pointed arch and the other sits under a slab supported by stone brackets. Look at the dated photographs side by side with the building record and you can pick out the changes without stepping inside.

Norton St Philip, from street to courtyard

The George Inn is on The Plain in Norton St Philip. Historic England places its earlier fabric in the fourteenth or fifteenth century. Its timber-framed upper floors, added in the sixteenth century, project beyond the stonework below. Viewed from street level, the overhang makes the shape of the building particularly easy to read. A central entrance leads through towards the courtyard, with a gallery along one side.

An archive photograph from about 1853 shows donkey carts outside the George. Study where the carts stand in relation to the entrance. The picture makes the width of the opening and its connection to the road much easier to appreciate than a close-up of the timberwork alone.

What an inn name can tell you

Inns keep their names over long periods while their owners, rooms and kitchens change. A list entry can describe the materials around a door. A dated visitor account can tell you what a guest found in the rooms at that time. Neither can tell you which entrance is open today or how a room is reached now. When returning to a familiar building for a meal or an overnight stay, compare the historic record with the operator’s present visitor information for Ditcheat.