The earliest part of the George is a residential open hall house which dates to the early to mid 15th century, this being the central section of the modern whole. Several additions and reconfigurations have been made, both in the later 15th and early 17th centuries as well as in modern times. It has been an inn since at least 1580, benefitting from it's position at the halfway point of the what was the main London to Brighton Route until 1938, and one with an esteemed guest list which includes George IV, Queen Victoria & Lord Nelson. Queen Elizabeth II dined at the George in 1958 and, more infamously, John Haigh, the acid bath murderer, stayed at the hotel on numerous occasions, and dined there on the day that he killed one of his victims.