Fifteenth century Gray's owned coaching inn with small rooms for drinking and dining alongside two main bars, with a nice outside area for both dining and drinking. Beer is cask dispensed and summer and winter beer festivals are held. Local musicians play on most Friday evenings and Sunday is quiz night. Locally sourced food includes Turkish specials prepared in a wood fired stone oven and Wednesday evening is a BBQ fish menu in summer months.
Historic Interest
Timber framed 16th-century hall house.
Two star - A pub interior of very special national historic interest
Listed status: II
This former coaching inn occupies a timber-framed 16th-century building and has an unusual layout of four rooms linked by a corridor running from the front door. Much of what you now see dates from changes in 1967, before which the main entrance was in the middle of the frontage, accessing an off-licence and rooms each side (the current public bar and saloon). Both these rooms are simply appointed with slatted-wood counters and basic bar-back shelving. The public bar has some old panelling and ale is served from barrels stillaged behind the counter. The room on the left of the corridor only entered pub use in 1980; a glass-fronted section of wall displays the underlying wattle and daub construction. There is also a small back room of fairly recent vintage. On the first floor, but accessed from outside, is a magnificent assembly room built around 1790 and refurbished in 1980; the superb moulding on the barrel ceiling is a plaster replica of the papier-mache original.
Timber-framed 16th-century hall-house which includes the shop to the left, now leased out. Four rooms are now linked by a corridor running from the front door. First, on the right, is the public bar which, until 1967, was accessed by a door in the middle of the frontage which also gave on to a tiny off-sales and the saloon - you can still see the old door behind the servery. The simple, slatted-wood counter and bar back shelving are from 1967. Ale is served from casks on two wooden stillages behind the bar. Note the old crib board screwed to the top of a scrubbed table. Other features are the portion of old dado panelling, an internal window to the corridor and a brick fireplace from which the plaster was removed fairly recently.
To the left of the corridor is the parlour, incorporated into the pub in 1980; a glass-fronted section of wall displays the underlying watlle & daub construction. The corridor turns 90 degrees; a small room at the back, also fairly new to pub use, has part-timbered walls and a hatch to the bar opposite. Finally we come to the saloon where the fittings are also from the 1967 changes, as is the extension into the former kitchen pantry (hence the old meat hooks in the beams)
Accessed from stairs in the yard at the back is the superb barrel-ceilinged 'Long Room', believed to date from around 1790. This room, part of which sits above the saloon, has served many purposes from ballroom to courtroom to auction house and more recently a folk club and theatre. As assembly room for the local Conservatives, it also operated as a political and social arena and was the scene of a speech by Benjamin Disraeli, hence it being known as the Disraeli Room. It was refurbished in in 1980 and the superb moulding on the ceiling is a plaster replica from that time of the papier-mache original. Assembly rooms like this were once a common feature of coaching inns; most had a partition or movable doors enabling the space to be divided and the Bell's retains such a feature - and hence the fireplaces either end of the room.
To the left is a plain room with a few timbers and a glass-fronted section displaying the underlying wattle and daub construction. The corridor then turns 90 degrees and there’s a small, room at the rear with part timbered walls and a hatch to the bar opposite it. The smoke room on the right has a counter and bar back shelves at least 40 years old; the room was extended to the rear in c.1968. At the rear is a 17th- or 18th-century building with an upstairs room which was used as a court house. Now called the Disraeli Room it was refurbished in 1980 and has a plaster ceiling which is an exact replica of the original old Papier-Mache ceiling.
This Pub serves 3 changing beers and 0 regular beers.
Bell, Castle Hedingham
Source: Local