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Picture Source: Richard Ashwell

The Cross Keys was situated on Market Square. This grade-II listed coaching inn was closed in February 1989 and has now been converted to shops and offices. The staging bell above the arch, which once announced the imminent departure of the coach disappeared in the development.

From The Good Pub Guide 1983:

The well-kept beer here - Paine's XXX, 41 and EG, on handpump or tapped straight from the cask - is brewed just across the square, and the simple lunchtime food is excellent value: sandwiches, bubble and squeak, shepherd's pie, lasagne, chilli con carne, and chicken, gammon and so forth with chips, all at low prices. It's served in a long room with beams, timbering and exposed seventeenth-century brickwork at the back, taller and airier at the front; darts, a fruit machine and space game. There is a comfortable lounge bar in the hotel part, which serves much the same sort of food in the evenings; also a separate restaurant. There are a couple of tables in the small grassy cobbled coachyard: in its coaching days a pair off the inn's customers, unarmed, overpowered and captured two highwaymen here.

Listed building details:

C17 with half H plan and wings at rear, later extended eastward to incorporate the former White Lyon Inn. Refronted in red brick with bays added mid C18. 2 storeys. 8 windows, of which the 4th and 8th are splayed bay windows (with 3 lights) carried up full height of wall. Tiled and slated roofs. Brick and plastered timber framed construction at rear. Modern parapet with band below. Gauged flat brick arches to recessed sash windows with glazing bars. Square-headed carriageway below 3rd window. Modern wrought iron sign board.

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Other Photos

Picture source: Russell Judge