9 and 9A Southgate Street

The actual Bell Inn building itself was actually built for the Mayor of Gloucester at the time, Thomas Yate, in 1664–5 as a merchant's house. Sash windows were added to all of the upper floors in the eighteenth century. Thomas and Elizabeth () Whitefield (newlyweds from Bristol, England), during their honeymoon in Gloucester, purchased both the apothecary and the next door home of Mayor Yates. They converted it into the luxurious Bell Inn (Hotel), complete with full service stables and stores on the bottom floor. The old apothecary building was converted into a tavern with a theater and a ballroom for large social events. Actors were hired by the Whitefield family to perform at Bell Inn Pub…

The building has three storeys as well as an attic and cellar. It has a timber facade, which may have been built from the wood of the Mayflower, and is built of brick with a timber frame. There is a brick rear wing to the left. The ground floor serves as the shop front and each upper floor has three large sash windows. There are two hip-roofed dormers which form part of the attic. Inside there is a nineteenth-century staircase up to the first floor. The front room of the first floor has decorative plasterwork and a mid-nineteenth century fireplace within a magnificently carved surround with cherubs, cornucopia and a segmental pediment with broken overmantel with the Yate/Berkeley coat of…