A Brief History
The Angel, at Grantham, has been known to travellers on the Great North Road for more than 800 years, and many tales are told of it.
The inn retains its medieval character and much of the original buildings. It has the distinction of being one of the few remaining medieval hostelries and one of the oldest in the country. It stands on the ground believed to have belonged to the Knights Templar, acquired by the preceptory of Temple Bruer- one of England’s richest Knights Templar preceptories, second only to The Temple in London.
The Order was dissolved in 1312 and the Angel was seized by King Edward II and most likely became the property of the Knights Hospitallers. At the time the Angel no doubt entertained the prosperous merchants in the wool trade of the thirteenth century, who came to Grantham in their travels to and from the great market at Boston. There is a record of one such who was indicted in 1274 for smuggling forty bags of wool from Grantham to London and thence to France.
Origins and Royal Visits
There are no records of The Angel and Royal’s exact origins, but its current gatehouse dates to the late 14th century. Evidence suggests a full courtyard of buildings once stood behind it, with ancient cellars possibly dating back to the 9th century. Rumors of tunnels linking the site to St. Wulfram's Church and the market square remain unfounded. Located at the town's highest point, it likely served in place of a castle.
Tradition holds that King John and his train of courtiers were lodged here on 23 February 1213, two years before signing the Magna Carta. While little remains of the building he saw, othing is thought to remain unless it be some masonry in the cellars. But the present gateway has walls 35 inches thick so that its 14th-century front almost certainly refaces a much older fabric. Upon its hood moulding are carved the heads of the next royal visitors from the 14th century, surmounted at the time as a tribute to their royal patronage: King Edward III and his Queen, Phillipa of Hainault, who begged the lives of the Burghers of Calais.
The King's Room
The large upper room of the current inn, now the restaurant, was known for centuries as the King’s Room or La Chambre du Roi. On 19 October 1483, King Richard III, newly settled on the throne, received the Great Seal here, enabling him to begin proceedings against the Duke of Buckingham. While Buckingham’s death warrant was once thought to have been signed here, historians now believe it was signed at Salisbury. The original warrant no longer exists, but the facsimile of Richard III’s letter requesting the Great Seal is on display at the hotel, near the King’s Room Restaurant.
The King’s Room features three oriel windows with carved stone paneling, and similar carvings can be seen in two ground-floor windows. The bar’s window has an elaborate carving of a pelican feeding her young with its own blood, a religious symbol possibly linking the house to pilgrims visiting St. Wulfram’s shrine. In 1947, a 14th-century fireplace spanning nine feet was uncovered and restored, with a similar discovery in the lounge in 1958.
Old licensing hours were long, but at the Angel, they stayed open until every bed was filled. In 1706, landlord Michael Soloman left 40s a year for an annual sermon against drunkenness each Michaelmas Day, still preached today with funding from the Brownlow Trust Fund.
A Traveller's Inn
An eighteenth-century feature to be observed is the four square rain-water head bearing the date 1746, and the device of a griffin. A relic of posting days is to be seen in the postillions; uniforms shown in a glass cases in the hotel’s King’s Room, which were discovered in a forgotten cupboard. In 1791 Lord Torrington’s travels brought him to Grantham. He was lodged at the Angel and found the wine very tolerable; his bill shows a charge of fourpence for rush-lights, one shilling for brandy and one shilling and sixpence for tea, a commentary on changed values!
The Angel, because of its situation on the road from north to south and stables for 50 horses, has always been a traveller’s inn, and in the days of travel by coach hundreds of coaches pulled up outside it every week. The famous York, Edinburgh, and Aberdeen Royal Mail stopped there, as did the Royal Charlotte bound for Edinburgh, the York and Leeds Post Coach and the York Highflyer. In the early years of the nineteenth century the inn was for a time in the hands of Messrs. Windover, carriage builders of Long Acre in London. In more recent times, before the motorcar had made distance inconsiderable, its long range of stabling was kept busy throughout the hunting season by the followers of the Belvoir Hunt.
The Angel And Royal Hotel
The coming of the railways discouraged many posting inns, but not the Angel at Grantham. A guide published by the Great Northern Railway in 1857 has an announcement by the then landlord, Richard John Boyall, who thanks the Nobility and the Public generally who have so liberally patronised the Hotel under his management, and with the greatest respect informs them that he is determined to maintain the character of the same by strictly attending to the comforts of his guests... and by the observance, through his attendants, of those little minutiae which so essentially contribute to make the abode in an hotel partake of the comforts of a home.
Up until the middle of the 1800s, the hotel was still classed as an Inn, being fondly known simply as The Angel. Despite the fact no less than seven Kings of England and various other members of royalty had already patronised the Inn, which included Edward IV on the 14th of March 1469, Charles I on the 17th of May 1633 (his arch enemy Oliver Cromwell also stayed at the Angel after his successful battle near Grantham in 1643) and numerous visits by George IV, it wasn’t however until 1866 and a visit to Grantham by the then Prince of Wales which led to the property getting the second part of its name. It was universally agreed that the visit by the eldest son of Queen Victoria and heir to the throne as Edward VII should be commemorated by the incorporation of “Royal” in the Inn’s name: thus The Angel & Royal came into being and as it is known today throughout the world. It was not until the early 1920s that the word Inn was officially dropped, and the building became a hotel.
