The following text is from the original listed building designation:
1. 5281
THE BAYLE (South Side)
FOLKESTONE

No 8 and No 10 (The British Lion Inn)
TR 2335 NW 2/7
II GV
2.

Early C19. 2 storeys. No 8 is built of brown brick. 'The British Lion Inn' is stuccoed. 5 sashes in all with glazing bars intact to the 'British Lion Inn' and a small bay window on the ground floor. This has a stone painted figure of a lion couchant outside the entrance. No 8 has a moulded doorcase with cornice.
Priory House and Nos 4 to 18 (even) form a group.
Listing NGR: TR2302835899
(1)

No. 8 was surveyed in 1995 and found to be of considerably earlier date. Numbers 8 and 10 were probably originally a single late medieval timber-framed building of 3 or 4 bays erected in the early to mid 16th century, perhaps between c.1525 and 1550. This building reused an earlier masonry wall, now the ground-floor northern wall, which dates to c. 1350 and 1450. It is possibly a surviving element of one of the monastic buildings associated with the Folkestone Priory. The buildings were internally subdivided in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The renovation works had lowered the internal ground-floor space of No. 8 by c.15cm, effectively removing all traces that might have been associated with the earlier building and construction and occupation of the current structure. Similar works to the rear of the property were observed and sampled. Organic deposits were found similar to other known monastic sites and a small collection of sherds of pottery was recovered, dating from the late Anglo-Saxon period through to the 12th century, corresponding to the known dates of occupation of the priory. (2)

<1> English Heritage, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest (Map). SKE16160.

<2> Canterbury Archaeological Trust, 1995, 8 The Boyle, Folkestone: Historic Building and Archaeological Recording (Unpublished document). SKE16605.