Monument record 1361500000 - Orkney Arms Hotel

Site of a former coaching inn, probably constructed shortly after 1700, and named in honour of Lord George Hamilton, the Duke of Orkney. The hotel is described as having two parlours, two coffee rooms, a bar and taproom, kitchen and scullery on the ground floor, three large sitting rooms and three bedrooms on the first floor, and nine bedrooms on the second floor. It had a garden and two meadows associated with it. The hotel was listed as operated by William Skindle and Son in 1854, which is how it acquired its more recent name of Skindles Hotel. It was leased in the 1850s and later sold to Henry Grenfell. The hotel was expanded in the 1880s, which included the construction of a new building fronting the river. Some of the eighteenth century buildings were in existence in the 1960s but the original part of the hotel was demolished shortly after. The western building still stood in 2006 (B1).