Description from record TR 15 NW 399:
No 8 St Margaret's Street [TR 14855768 sited from OS 1/1250 1974]. Grade II. Rebuilt in facsimile after war damage. Only the ground floor is original. (1) No 8 St Margaret's Street. 18th century building with modern extensions. (2)

The Canterbury UAD states that No 8 St Margaret's Street was formerly called The Angel Inn yet very little is known about this ancient inn. The Licensing List for 1692 records the Angel, St. Margaret's Street. It was sold in 1729 and nothing more has been found about it to date. Its name does not appear in Pigot's Directory's for 1828-29 or 1832-34, or later directories, thus it must have closed sometime before 1828, or its name was changed and the record has not been traced.

The exact location in St. Margaret's Street remains unknown and it has been situated on map info at No. 8 but this is conjectured only. (3)

The following text is from the original listed building designation:
1. 944 ST MARGARET'S STREET (South East Side)
No 8 TR 1457 NE 4/194 3.12.49
II GV
2. Rebuilt in facsimile after war damage. Only the ground floor is original. 3 storeys red brick. Stone coping. 3 sashes with verticals only. Original early C19 doorcase has semi-hood and scrolled brackets and interesting floral decorated frieze.
Nos 5 to 8 (consec) form a group.
Listing NGR: TR1486057682 (4)

A watching brief recording the historic building during redevelopment in 2018-2020.
During the late 16th century, a mansion owned by Sir George Newman was established on the east side of St Margaret's Street; the mansion contained a brewhouse alongside yards, outbuildings, and an ornamental garden. The area of the mansion was then occupied by No.9 St Margaret's Street which took the form of a large 3-storey Georgian property. This property was then subject to bomb damage during the Second World War, demolished, then redeveloped in the 1960s into an extension to Slatters hotel located in No.s 7 & 8 St Margaret's Street.


No.8 St Margaret's Street was largely constructed in the early 18th century, however earlier fabric in some areas of the house, including the cellar, suggest that an earlier building may predate the Georgian building. The cellar is thought to date from the 16th or 17th century, and is formed of two rooms with pointed/semi0cicular arched niches thought to have originally functioned as winter bee boles. The red bricks used to construct the cellar are laid in English bond.

The 18th century building "was formed in red brick. Its three storey façade, as built, rose from a low (and still surviving) plinth, through a plat band at second floor level, to a deep modillioned cornice – the latter two features were not reinstated when the property was rebuilt after the war (Pl 2). Sash windows, disposed in an orderly and regular manner, pierced the elevation, beneath flat, rubbed brick arches, their reveals highlighted with lighter brick. The surviving front door is located against the south wall and is provided with a fine timber doorcase, with deep cornice supported by shallow pilasters and richly moulded consoles. Scrolled vegetation and bold stylised flowers enrich its frieze.
Early eighteenth-century panelling survives within the building, on the ground floor, in the surviving front room, this typical of the period and comprising large fielded panels with prominent bolection mouldings, above and below a moulded dado" (from the original report, 5).

When analysing the oak joists and beams over the front ground floor room, their similarity in appearance to medieval floor beams was noted. "A sequence of incised medieval carpenter’s numerals, running from 1-12, from south to north, was observed on the joists (and on the spine-beams next to the corresponding mortices). A second sequence belonging to the missing rear joists runs in the opposite direction, but is tagged to distinguish it from the front sequence" (from the original report, 5). This is thought to indicate that these materials were reused elements of an earlier structure, as inconsistencies in floor construction suggests that these joists and beams do not represent an earlier building forming part of the existing structure.

The remains of an early post-medieval outbuilding has also been identified at the site in the form of a features representing a single-storey timber-framed building. These features are largely comprised of timber posts/beams which are now incorporated into the south wall of the house.
The building was also affected by bomb damage, however, the structure remained standing - although burnt out - into the 1960s.
Former uses for the building have included as a domestic dwelling for a number of residents, alongside a 'Piano-Forte Repository', an Institute for Trained Nurses in 1887, followed by the development of the site into part of Slatters Hotel in the late 19th, early 20th century. (5)

<1> DOE (HHR) City of Canterbury Kent Sept 1973 229 (OS Card Reference). SKE40060.

<2> Hist Builds Survey Cant City Council/RCHME 57035 9 of 29 (OS Card Reference). SKE43893.

<3> Enderby, H. M., 1950, The Inns of Canterbury Parts I & II, Lecture to the Canterbury Archaeological Society (Unpublished document). SKE29964.

<4> English Heritage, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest (Map). SKE16160.

<5> Canterbury Archaeological Trust Ltd., 2020, NUMBERS 7 AND 8 ST. MARGARET’S STREET, CANTERBURY: Historic building recording watching brief during redevelopment of the former Slatters Hotel site (Unpublished document). SKE55757.