The Talbot Inn, where King Charles is alleged to have blacked boots, which the “Merry Monarch,” if necessary, would have done with a smile, is one of the best known hostelries of the County. It is a favourite anglers’ house, for the Teme at Knightsford is reputed to abound in trout and grayling; and the position at the foot of Ankerdine, and close to the bridge-head, commands the traffic, whether on pleasure or business bent, between great parts of Worcestershire and Herefordshire. Few travellers, either way, dream of passing without propitiating the “Spirits of Flood and fell.” That at least, is my experience, extending over seventy years.
The situation, however, is not free from drawbacks; for Teme at this point, bursting through its gorge, is liable to sudden and raging floods, attaining a great height.
Calling on one occasion in Victorian days, I found the lower storey wrecked, and the ceiling lifted, by flood in which the bedsteads had been set afloat, and the innkeeper and his household placed in deadly peril.
The Talbot is of the Sixteenth Century, and doubtless named in honour of Lady De Lisle, a great Talbot heiress of that date, with large possessions in Worcestershire. It is half timbered, and though re-fronted some two hundred years ago, still retains original chimneystack.
 
Interestingly in the above photo Lewis Clarke & Co's Ales have a sign on the roof, and I would imagine this brewery owned the Talbot at that time.

Mr. Noake, in recounting experiences at Knightsford Bridge, describes an afternoon at the Talbot. He had intended ascending Ankerdine, for religious revivalists were holding a great “camp meeting” on the summit, and the prospect of an emotional service in so glorious a setting appealed to him; but throughout the afternoon rain fell pitilessly. The Talbot proved not unequal to the occasion, and provided a substitute for the service in “Fox’s Book of Martyrs.

I expect the inside would have not looked much different to above, as I remeber it when I used to use the Talbot.

 ©peh