Talbot House  is a Georgian grade II-listed building whose first incarnation was an 18th century coaching inn named The Star.  The front of the building was constructed in the 1740s, with the rear extension added at around 1810. Very little of the original interior remains, as the building suffered a major fire in the late 1800s, but there still exist blocked-in doorways and chimneys which hint as to how the building was used.

The courtyard is a shadow of how it was. There used to be stabling for up to 15 horses, and beyond,  and where the car park is, was an orchard. The town was a major trade route for wool and lead; wool from Fountains Earth Estate in Wharfedale on it's way to Fountains Abbey, and lead from Greenhow Hill, thence to Hull for exporting by water. Pateley has been a crossing point over the River Nidd for nearly two thousand years. Roman mines have been found up at Greenhow, and a Roman Villa at Glasshouses.

A talbot was a dog that ran alongside coaches on Britain's highways. Some sources say the dogs were white, others that they had spots, and that they were related to hounds and dalmatians. It is said that there is a portrait of a talbot at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire.