It is impossible to say just how old the White Hart Hotel is, as it would have evolved over the centuries. The town was established in the 9th century, and there might well have been an inn on this site to meet local needs and the requirements of travellers from further afield.

Ampthill acquired its first Market Charter in 1219, but the towns commercial life at the centre of the surrounding district will by then have been firmly established for generations.

In 1542 a survey of King Henry VIII's estate records this Ampthill tenement with a great gatehouse called "The Herte". A full inventory of the Redd Herte made in 1619 has been of particular help in naming the rooms of the 21st century restoration, although with the exception of the gatehouse, there is no clue to their original positioning. The inventory's precise listing includes detail of the furnishings including curtains, carpets, bed linen, pewter candlesticks and chamber pots, the contents of the kitchens, the cellars - with beers and wines, the outhouses and livestock - including bees.

In 1646, as a courageous gesture of defiance during the Civil War, a wall painting honouring Charles, Prince of Wales was put up in what is now the entrance lobby. The painting must have been hidden away on the execution of Charles I a couple of years later, but certainly before 1649, when the commissioners surveying former crown property on behalf of parliament. They noted the Redd Harte was 40 feet in length by 18 feet deep, and detailed particularly "eight rooms below stayers, four chambers and two clossettes above stairs. The mural was uncovered in 1975, and is still available to view in the entrance lobby of the hotel.

The building was given its current façade and name in about 1730. Since then it has been at the centre of Ampthill and district life, subject to the needs of each successive age, through high and low points including fires & delapidations, and most recently and seriously the fire of June 6th 2001.