Home > Somerset > Ilminster > George Hotel George Hotel
		Picture source: Hania Franek
The George Hotel was situated on North Street. This is a grade-II* listed building.
Listed building details:
Hotel. Mid C17, refurbished in mid C18, early and late C19. Rough Ham Hill stone ashlar, slate roof with stepped stone coping and brick stacks to gable ends and left-of-centre, backing onto the north wall of the carriage entrance. Long rectangular-plan front range with extensive rear wings. Exterior: 3 storeys; 9-window range. Second floor has 3/6-pane sashes; windows to first and ground floors have keyed lintels over horned 2/2-pane sashes in forward frames. A painted stone doorcase to right-of-centre has a pediment, moulded achitrave, and double doors of 3 panels; this reaches the painted platband at first-floor sill level. The carriage entrance with segmental arch, is below the third window from the left, and immediately to its left are double 3-panel doors with overlight. To far left are late C19 paired 1/1-pane sashes with a shared sill. The rear, facing west, has large C19 gabled extension to the centre of the main block, 2 storeys and attic, with C19 windows and C20 entrance and door. To the right is an C18 two-storey rubblestone and slate wing which has a stone mullioned Venetian window with intersecting glazing bars to the top. Attached to this is an early C19 two-storey lower  wing with three 8/8-pane sashes to the centre and stone steps with wrought-iron railings rising from the centre, to double first-floor doors at each end. The ground floor of this wing has 2 re-set early C17 four-light stone mullioned windows, ovolo to the left, cavetto to the right. The late C19 wing to the left is the rubblestone and pantile stable block which has C20 two- and three-light windows to the ground floor, wide planked doors to inside-right and to the hayloft above, and to inside-left, which is flanked by fixed 3-light windows, each with 3/3 fixed lights above. All openings to this wing have segmental arches and rounded jambs; the west-facing gable end is weatherboarded above planked garage doors. Interior: A late C17 fireplace with egg-and-dart moulding to an eared architrave and a central block set in cushion moulding to the top, stands against the wall to the left of the main building, ie. to the right of the arch; a chamfered cross-beam remains to the left of the main room. The first floor has been altered; the second floor reveals a structure of 11 bays with heavy square trenched purlins and original jointing-in of the rear right wing. The roof, probably repaired and boarded in the early C19, has substantial main rafters jointed with roughly-cut plates to house the ridge-in-notch; many common rafters are repaired, replaced or jointed in. A straight early C18 staircase near the left end is open-string with turned balusters, a wide swept rail and fretted ends. History: Always a coaching inn, The George rose to great prosperity when a new turnpike was opened in 1809, from Honiton through Ilminster on the route from London to Exeter. The Duke and Duchess of Kent and the infant Princess Victoria stayed here on their way to Sidmouth in 1819.
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Other Photos
Picture source: Hania Franek
Picture source: Hania Franek