Look for the painted street frontage with its slightly overhanging upper storey and the White Lion nameboard set across the face.
The building in front of you keeps a rather old secret. Beneath that refaced front sits a timber-framed house from the end of the sixteenth century, protected today as a Grade Two listed building. That overhang above you is a jetty, where the upper floor projects a little over the one below. In a deed from seventeen thirty-five, this place already answers to the White Lion, yet the same papers quietly preserve an earlier name, the Three Cupps. They also reveal a stranger past: part of the premises served as a meeting house, then a brewhouse, before the pub identity settled in.
If you glance at the image on your screen, you can see how ordinary the frontage looks for a building with such a restless history. In the seventeen forties, Samuel Long, William Wiltshire, Henry Potter and Moses Machorro all appear in the deeds, buying, mortgaging and rearranging it as valuable Sopwell Lane property. Later, local police disliked the White Lion for a deliciously practical reason: it had three exits, perfect for anyone keen to vanish before capture. More recently, South Herts CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, praised it under landlord David Worcester for the quality of its beer, though a former landlord was later fined after a music-licence breach. If you are planning a return, it generally opens from noon until eleven, with moderate prices.
The White Lion wears its centuries lightly.
When you are ready, let the trail lead you on to the Hare and Hounds.
