The King's Head was built in the mid seventeenth century in the town ditch and so post dates the Civil War. It was altered in the eighteenth century and again in the late nineteenth (by the addition of gables) and twentieth centuries. The walls are rendered and painted with rusticated quoins under a Welsh slate roof and the building has three storeys and an attic. The hotel has expanded from its original building into the adjoining buildings on both sides; the interior has been gradually opened out to join the three buildings into one and this has been continued by the present owner with the resultant very large bar areas on the ground floor. The inn became an important post-house in the later seventeenth century when the landlord was Richard Ballard, post-master, and Mayor in 1675. He is said to have been responsible for the plaster painted portrait of Charles I in the bar.

(Source: Cadw listed buildings database)

B.A.Malaws, RCAHMW, 4 July 2007.

[Additional:]

Renovation work (July 2017) has revealed traces of C17th wallpaintings in the chamber over the King's Room, notable for its Restoration plasterwork. Conservation by Jane Rutherford is in progress. R.F. Suggett/RCAHMW/26 July 2017