The White Lion

Built

Early 18th century, probably two houses

Gone

Closed as a pub in January 2014

There now

Brampton Medical Practice's White Lion Surgery and flats. The eastern end is Roman Edge House

Address

17 High Cross Street, Brampton

Where exactly

From the medical practice's own address for the White Lion Surgery at 17 High Cross Street

The pub at the head of the Brampton Mile, and one that took a while to admit it had gone. It was the White Lion by 1790, and the listing, Grade II since January 1984, describes a hotel probably built as two early eighteenth-century houses, raised to three storeys in the mid-nineteenth and finished in painted incised stucco under Welsh slate, with gabled dormers and yellow brick chimneys. The directories name its licensees in a decent run: Joseph Armstrong in 1847, John Dodd the cabinet maker from 1858 to 1873, James Moffat in 1894, George and Luna Moffat in 1897, Tom A Riddell in 1906 and 1910 while also holding the Kings Arms, William Spooner in 1914.

It closed in January 2014 and CAMRA marked it permanently closed the following month. An Indian restaurant took it briefly, and after that it stood empty from 2015. A local couple bought it in 2017 and converted it around 2019-20 to what is there now. The eastern section, marked Roman Edge House on the Ordnance Survey map, is only the part as far as the first doorway; the rest is flats and Brampton Medical Practice's White Lion Surgery, one of the practice's four sites, open eight until half six on weekdays.

The name outlived the pub by more than a decade, which is why listings sites went on describing a trading pub with a quiz and a karaoke long after the last pint was pulled. Not to be confused with the White Lion Inn on English Street in the city, which is also in this archive and was gone from the directories after 1873.

Sources

• Historic England listing 1087633, White Lion Hotel
• closedpubs.co.uk: White Lion, Brampton, with Steve Turner's directory research, July 2023
• CAMRA: recorded permanently closed, February 2014
• Brampton Medical Practice: its four sites, including the White Lion Surgery at 17 High Cross Street

Location from bramptonmedicalpractice.com. That's the building standing over it, not the exact doorway.

Still serving, near where it stood

• The Nags Head Hotel

  Brampton
  50 maway

• Howard Arms Hotel

  Brampton
  70 maway

• Brampton & District Conservative Club

  Brampton
  70 maway

• The Shoulder of Mutton

  Brampton
  90 maway