The Kings Arms, Desborough, Northamptonshire

Oxford Archaeology (OA) has carried out a programme of building recording and investigation at the Kings Arms Public House, Desborough, Northamptonshire. The work is in advance of a refurbishment and extension to the pub and it has been undertaken as a condition of planning approval for the works. The original inn is an ironstone building of probable early 18th-century date and it is notable for its relatively plain but attractive vernacular construction similar to that of many buildings in this part of Northamptonshire. Desborough itself, however, has lost many such buildings and the Kings Arms is now a fragmentary reminder of how the village would once have appeared. The main phasing of the inn is relatively straightforward with several 19th and 20th-century extensions to the rear but one of these extensions consisted of a rebuilding of an older rear range, probably contemporary with the original inn, which is likely to have been a stable block which may have served coaches and travellers passing through Desborough