The George and Dragon is a

public house A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and wa ...

in the village of

Great Budworth Great Budworth is a village and civil parish in Cheshire, England, north of Northwich off the A559 road, east of Comberbach, northwest of Higher Marston and southeast of Budworth Heath. Until 1948, Great Budworth was part of the Arley Hall es ...

, Cheshire, England. It is recorded in the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, a ...

as a designated Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

History

Great Budworth is a village that was formerly in the estate of

Arley Hall Arley Hall is a country house in the village of Arley, Cheshire, England, about south of Lymm and north of Northwich. It is home to the owner, Viscount Ashbrook, and his family. The house is a Grade II* listed building, as is its adja ...

. In the later part of the 19th century, its owner,

Rowland Egerton-Warburton Rowland Eyles Egerton-Warburton (14 September 1804 – 6 December 1891) was an English landowner and poet from the Egerton family in Cheshire. He was a devout Anglican in the high church tradition and a local benefactor. He paid for the re ...

, undertook a "campaign to restore the village and render it

picturesque Picturesque is an aesthetic ideal introduced into English cultural debate in 1782 by William Gilpin in ''Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the Summer of the Year ...

in Victorian eyes". The George and Dragon was at that time a simple three- bay

Georgian Georgian may refer to: Common meanings * Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country) ** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group ** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians **Georgian scripts, three scrip ...

inn. In 1875 Egerton-Warburton commissioned the Chester architect John Douglas to undertake the restoration. Douglas added tall rubbed chimneys,

mullion A mullion is a vertical element that forms a division between units of a window or screen, or is used decoratively. It is also often used as a division between double doors. When dividing adjacent window units its primary purpose is a rigid supp ...

ed windows and a steep pyramidal

turret Turret may refer to: * Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building * Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon * Objective turret, an indexable holder of multiple lenses in an optical microscope * Mi ...

Architecture

The inn has three bays and is in two storeys. It is built in brick with a

roughcast Roughcast or pebbledash is a coarse plaster surface used on outside walls that consists of lime and sometimes cement mixed with sand, small gravel and often pebbles or shells. The materials are mixed into a slurry and are then thrown at the ...

rendering on the upper storey. The roofs are hipped and covered in clay tiles. The central bay consists of a two-storey porch which projects forwards. Its lower storey has an elliptical-headed doorway, and in the upper storey is a four-light mullioned window. Each lateral bay has a four-light mullioned window in the lower storey and a three-light mullioned window in the upper storey. A tall rubbed brick chimneystack rises from the left side of the roof. Diagonally from the right corner is the inn sign. The cut-out pictorial sign itself originated in

Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...

while its ornate

wrought iron Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.08%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4%). It is a semi-fused mass of iron with fibrous slag inclusions (up to 2% by weight), which give it a wood-like "grain" ...

bracket was made by the estate

blacksmith A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. tinsmith). Blacksmiths produce objects such as gates, gr ...

. On each side of the porch is an oak post-and-rail fence inscribed with a number of sayings. Above the inner door is a stone containing a verse written by Egerton-Warburton. Internally, in the bar, is a stone inscribed in

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

and the date 1722.

Present day

The George and Dragon continues to trade as a public house and restaurant.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Great Budworth, George and Dragon Commercial buildings completed in 1875 John Douglas buildings Grade II listed pubs in Cheshire 1875 establishments in England Saint George and the Dragon

History

Architecture

Present day

See also

References