Once possibly known as the Black Lion and Swan, this, along with the Bull’s Head, was one of the town’s coaching inns. An earlier building existed on the site from at least 1496 and it is said that the building was made from amalgamating two separate taverns, The Lion and The Swan.
Parts of the earlier building remain and can be seen inside the inn, but a much larger establishment was created, including a range of stabling, using timbers and stone to create the present-day inn some time during the 17th Century. The Lion and Swan was a staging post on the route between Manchester and London in the 18th Century, receiving passengers, parcels and post. Since 1552, inns that provided accommodation for travellers were not subjected to the licensing act and this gave them an advantage over the ale taverns that were often rowdy, boisterous, and in plentiful supply in Congleton. You can see the narrow entry into the Inn on Waggs Road where the coaches would have swept into the stable yard for a change of horses that would have enabled them to carry on with their journey. The road to the south was along the King’s Road which went along Waggs Road and Fol Hollow! This prosperous Inn sat cheek-by-jowl with the poor cottages and crowded little houses of Little Street and Duck Street.
