The following text is from the original listed building designation:
1. 944 OATEN HILL (North West Side)
No 24 (Cross Keys Inn) TR 1557 SW 9/175 3.5.67.
II
2. With No 39 Old Dover Road. Dated 1713. A corner house. 2 storeys and attic painted brick, Roof has 2 dormers and eaves cornice. Stringcourse. 3 windows on each front. Ground floor has had matching sashes inserted and a right side 3-light bay. Central doorcase with weatherhood and pendants and 6 panelled door. No 39 has an early C19 shop front and a simple moulded wooden doorcase. the rear elevation has a hipped roof.
Listing NGR: TR1545057067

Description from record TR 15 NE 829:
By mid September 1941, probably as part of the strengthening of the Canterbury Fortress, a fortified house had been established in a building at the crossroads where Oaten Hill met the Old Dover Road. This would almost certainly have been the Cross Keys public house, with a line of sight down the Old Dover Road approach to the Canterbury Fortress.
Owner : Private
Publicly accessible : Yes
How accessed for survey :
Tourism Potential :
Condition : unknown
Date of visit :

The Canterbury UAD states that this was an Tomson & Wooton/Whitbread/Charrington inn.

Mr Enderby's papers show that this inn was called The Sign of the Trumpet and in 1687 it was just The Trumpet. In 1741 there was an advertisement in a local paper, 'To be let good dwelling house in Parish of St. Mary Bredin near the sign of Cross Keys'. In 1792 the innkeeper was Mr Muller-Smithson in the Licensing List.

In Pigot's Directory for 1832-34 and 1840 James Smithson is given as innkeeper.

Sited where it is on the main London/Dover road it was obviously an important inn and one can imagine that many, important, famous and not so important paused a while for a drink, warmth and refreshment throughout the last 300 years or so.

In 1972 the Kentish Gazette reported that Charrington & Co and Whitbread Fremlin Ltd had arranged an exchange of inns in south east England. Three Charrington houses were exchanged for four Whitbread ones and one of those was The Cross Keys.

English Heritage, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest (Map). SKE16160.

Canterbury Fortress headquarters, 01/01/41, War Diary Canterbury Fortress 1941 (Unpublished document). SKE15607.