Swan Hotel Dining Room, Stafford

Description:Situated in Greengate, the Swan Hotel was originally built as two private town houses in the seventeenth century, joined by a central archway. The buildings were converted into a coaching inn in 1752 and a Georgian front was later added.

George Borrow described The Swan in the early nineteenth century as 'a place of infinite life and bustle', but by the middle of the century the advent of the railway had brought the Swan, like other coaching inns, into a decline. Charles Dickens stayed at the Swan at this time, when he found himself stranded between trains in Stafford; in contrast to Borrow he compared the inn to the extinct Dodo.