In this series of short articles, we would like to introduce you to some of the highlights of living in Newark on Trent.
This article focuses on one of the historic buildings which surrounds our town's market square. Newark is a town steeped in history and in the market square everywhere you look is an interesting building.
In Newark’s wonderful marketplace is the Olde White Hart, a medieval timber-framed building considered to be of national importance and reportedly home to a the ghost of a man hanged close by for a forgotten crime. Sir Nikolaus Pevsner described it as ‘one of the paramount examples of late fifteenth-century timber-framed architecture in England.’ (Buildings of England: N Pevsner, revised E Williamson: Nottinghamshire: London: 1979-: 192-193).
This fascinating building was probably built as a merchant or wealthy craftsman, then converted into an inn c. 1390. Dendrochronology confirms the date of the south wing to c. 1312. Major building work in the 1460s gave us the impressive frontage and converted part of the south wing hall into bedrooms. The main front has small plaster figures depicting Saint Anthony of Padua and Saint Barbara, one with a book, the other with a palm, repeated over and over.
During the English Civil War the Olde White Hart was used as a billet for Royalist soldiers defending the town and the building was damaged by a 'grenado' (mortar bomb).
Thomas Atkinson petitioned the Parliamentary Commissioners, claiming that he had kept the property in good repair until "Newark was besieged by the Parliaments forces and through a bumball or granado shott which came from the besiegers a great part of the said howse was blowne upp and some were there slaine and others mortally wounded" (http://www.nottshistory.org.uk/articles/oldwhitehart.htm).
The damage caused to the town by the three sieges in the Civil War is probably led to the remodelling which took place in the 17th Century. Unfortunately, these alterations caused subsidence to the main timber frame. In 1847 the Olde White Hart was purchased by John Cotham Bainbridge, Mayor, mercer, draper and funeral furnisher (http://newarklocalhistory.org.uk/bainbridges-drapery-shop/). The third floor windows providing the ideal location for dressmaking.
Although the building was listed in the 1950s, by the 1960s the building was in a such a perilous state that demolition was considered. Thankfully the Nottingham Building Society intervened and saved the building with extensive restorations in 1979-80 and so saved the Olde White Hart from collapse and secured its future.
A published book provides a documentary of the recorded history of the building, archaeological work at the site, details of architectural survey including a probable dating sequence beginning in 1320, and 1980s restoration work.
Picture credit: Peter Langsdale
