HISTORY
No 12 Old Street is no stranger to providing accommodation for the holidaymaker and traveller; in 1742 it was listed as the Golden Lion, and was one of the town's leading coaching inns - a role it maintained throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. It was from this inn that the last coach departed for Birmingham before the railway took over.

The 19th Century saw politics come to No 12. The landlord, one John Williams, held political meetings there for the Clivites and the Reformers. From the 1840s onwards the premises were also the venue for many auctions.

A directory from 1900 describes the Golden Lion as being comfortably furnished, and reveals that the proprietor, William Beeston was well ahead of his time, being a "mineral water bottler" as well as a brewer.

At its height, the inn was listed as having twelve bedrooms, smoke room, parlour, bar, kitchen and commercial room, as well as stabling for seven horses.

 
A complete turnaround took place in the next 25 years, as by 1926 the inn had become a Temperance Hotel, with modern conveniences and lock-up garages, the accommodation being described as reasonably priced and homely.

By the 1930s the building had become a cycle shop, and around 1970 some of the building was sold off and became the Public Library.

From 1980 onwards it was a very large and successful antiques shop with workshops to the rear and an additional shopfront in place of the driveway.

Two smaller parts of the property were then sold off, the driveway reinstated and the remaining double-fronted shop and upstairs were purchased by the present owners to accommodate their very successful bookbinding and book restoration business.