Until 1917 Rose & Crown Cottage was an inn. It is a timber-framed house on an L plan, plastered and lined to look like ashlar. The oldest part is a long three-bay one and a half storey north crosswing, which is 16th century.
The hall range is shorter and taller, 17th century, with a later 17th century service wing. This wing has a lobby entry, probably originally into a cross-passage behind the hall fireplace. Behind the chimney is a stair in a rear outshut. The service end chimney and fireplace are a later insertion backing onto the old stack and blocking the passage. The irregular east front has a two-storey central part. The lean-to painted brick beer-store against the north side was added in the 19th century. The wing has a clasped purlin roof with collar trusses cut through as if a floor was inserted in the 17th century, when the hall range was presumably rebuilt in place of an older open hall. The rear part of the wing has a floored stable and is still weatherboarded, as the one remaining bay of an outbuilding which enclosed the inn yard west of the house <1>. Building recording carried out on this found it to be of 17th century timber framing under a tiled roof; its western end was rebuilt in the late 19th century <2>.
The house is shown on the 1878 map <3> as The Crown, when the west wing was much larger and extended round the yard as outbuildings. It is shown in similar form on the 1899 map <4>, as the Rose & Crown. The 1924 map <5> has the same form, although by this time the pub had closed; the west end was reduced only after this date.
<1> Listed Buildings description (Digital archive). SHT6690.
<2> Semmelmann, Karin, 2008, Historic building recording and watching brief: Rose & Crown Cottage, Station Road, Long Marston, Tring, Herts, RNO 2096 (Report). SHT9398.
<3> OS 25 inch map, 1st edition, 1878 (Cartographic material). SHT8116.
<4> OS 25 inch map, 2nd edition (1897-1901), 1899 (Cartographic material). SHT8113.
<5> OS 25 inch map, 3rd edition (1913-1925), 1924 (Cartographic material). SHT5271.