The Bear Hotel is a historic

coaching inn The coaching inn (also coaching house or staging inn) was a vital part of Europe's inland transport infrastructure until the development of the railway, providing a resting point ( layover) for people and horses. The inn served the needs of t ...

in the

market town A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regular market; this distinguished it from a village or city. In Britain, small rura ...

Devizes Devizes () is a market town and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. It developed around Devizes Castle, an 11th-century Norman architecture, Norman castle, and received a charter in 1141. The castle was besieged during the Anarchy, a 12th-cent ...

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated to Wilts) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It borders Gloucestershire to the north, Oxfordshire to the north-east, Berkshire to the east, Hampshire to the south-east, Dorset to the south, and Somerset to ...

, England. On the west side of the town's

Market Place A marketplace, market place, or just market, is a location where people regularly gather for the purchase and sale of provisions, livestock, and other goods. In different parts of the world, a marketplace may be described as a ''souk'' (from ...

, it is one of many coaching inns in the town that once served the route from London to

Bath Bath may refer to: * Bathing, immersion in a fluid ** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body ** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe * Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities Plac ...

. It is formed of two distinct buildings and is now

Grade II* listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked with prot ...

. The earliest records of a Bear Hotel on this site are in 1559. The left front is from c.1700 and was given an ashlar facing, considered elegant by Julian Orbach, in around 1810. It has two full-height bay windows, flanked by reeded pilasters; the porch is slender ironwork. Behind the white-painted early-18th-century front of the right-hand building is an earlier structure, probably from the 16th or 17th centuries. A notable resident was the artist

Thomas Lawrence Sir Thomas Lawrence (13 April 1769 – 7 January 1830) was an English people, English portrait painter and the fourth president of the Royal Academy. A child prodigy, he was born in Bristol and began drawing in Devizes, where his father was a ...

, whose father was landlord of the Bear. He lived there between 1773 and 1780 and as a self-taught child artist he depicted travellers who stayed at the inn, many of them notable society figures on the way to fashionable Bath. His success led to him to turn professional, first in Bath and then London. He became a leading

portrait painter Portrait painting is a Hierarchy of genres, genre in painting, where the intent is to represent a specific human subject. The term 'portrait painting' can also describe the actual painted portrait. Portraitists may create their work by commissio ...

and

President of the Royal Academy Officers of the Royal Academy of Arts This is a list of the officers of the Royal Academy of Arts The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House in Piccadilly London, England. Founded in 1768, it has a ...

.Levey p.33-39 Immediately north of the hotel is the town's

Corn Exchange A corn exchange is a building where merchants trade grains. The word "corn" in British English denotes all cereal grains, such as wheat and barley; in the United States these buildings were called grain exchanges. Such trade was common in towns ...

References

Bibliography

* Buxton, David. ''Around Devizes in Old Photographs''. Sutton, 1990. * Levey, Michael. ''Sir Thomas Lawrence''. Yale University Press, 2005. Devizes Buildings and structures in Wiltshire Grade II* listed pubs in Wiltshire {{pub-stub

See also

References

Bibliography