The former Bell Inn in Alveley is a building opposite the church to the E. The core of the house (according to Morley's analysis), is a 13thc single-ended sandstone hall house that was turned into a double-ended one in the 15thc or 16thc by the addition on cruck beams and timber framing. In the 17thc brick was used to unify the structure turning it into an L-shaped inn. The inn was reported as permanently closed for at least 6 years in 2013, and it is now a privated dwelling. The interest of the house is in a group of loose and reset carved stones that have been associated with the Herefordshire School.

When the visit was made, carved stones were found loose, in the wall of a Utility Room, and in various locations inside the house and on the rear external wall. Other stones with no decoration were seen but are not recorded here.

The stones are assumed to have originated in Alveley church, and the medieval history provided here reflects this. In the Domesday Survey Aveley was held by Earl Aelfgar in 1066 and by Earl Roger de Montgomery, who held it in demesne, in 1086. It was assessed at 1 hide, and the was a priest there and 8 villans and 4 bordars. Alveley church was one of six prebends for the royal free collegiate chapel of secular canons founded by Earl Roger at Quatford in 1086, by the mid-12thc moved to Bridgnorth Castle. On the death of Roger de Montgomery Alveley passed to his son, Roger de Belleme, who is assumed to have forfeited it, along with his other holdings, when he became involved in a rebellion against Henry I in 1102. It is fair to assume that the manor passed into royal hands at that time. By 1155-56 the manor had been granted by Henry II to Guy Lestrange, whose heirs held in into the 13thc.

The stones were first noted at Alveley in 1989, when 16 items, 13 of them decorated with sculpture, were discovered in and around the Bell Inn, although there is evidence that some of the stones were already in place in the walls as early as 1913 (Hunt, 1997, 27). The account of the stones by Hunt and Stokes (1997) represents their earliest systematic publication, although Zarnecki knew about them and referred to them in an article of 1990. The assumption that they came from Alveley church is based on the observation that it is just across the road, and that the chancel was renewed in the 13thc. Nothing in the church itself is comparable to this work. Hunt and Stokes's analysis is largely concerned with the ownership of the manor (see History) and its implications for the presence of work associated with the Herefordshire School here. Similar preoccupations are associated with Thurlby's work, which emphasizes the association between Alveley and the college at Bridgnorth, and especially High de Mortimer who moved into Bridgnorth Castle c.1138-40.

Specific links with Herefordshire School works elsewhere are easy to find. The motif of a dragon strangled by its own tail found on Dragon reliefs 1 and 2 was the first to be noted by Zarnecki (1990) as carved on a large scale on the font at Chaddesley Corbett (Worcestershire). The scene of Samson and the Lion is best known as the subject of the monumental tympanum at Stretton Sugwas, but also occurs on an impost inside the W front of Leominster Priory, on a tiny scale. The knight in foliage can be compared with similar figures at Billesley, and on the font at Eardisley, while the figures under arcading have been convincingly compared to work at Brinsop by Thurlby. Other comparisons can readily be made with work at Shobdon and Kilpeck.

Finally mention must be made of Rachel Morley's valuable paper which provides a detailed photographic record of the conservation of the reliefs in the Utility Room, and especially of the Pelican relief which had been filled with coal and lumps of tile before being covered with a thick render, so that nothing of what lay beneath was initially visible.