It's a rather large building, expanded a number of times due to the increasing number of guests it needed to house. Situated at the intersection of two main roads - Guild City to Loreth, and the longer range one between Drandia and Oldtown in the kingdom to the north - it became an important stopping off point for traders. Although the road to Loreth has taken a different course, the Drandia to Oldtown route is ancient and there are many who say it was used well before hominids thought to settle the area, being a migratory route for antelope and the like. It most likely became a route for hominids who were hunting the migrating animals and who may have settled the area around the lake. Pushing north-east their furs and pelts would have made for good trade with the fisherfolk of Loreth and the place of the big yellow blob with no name due east. Where trade routes meet, caravan camps build up, and then more permanent buildings, such as the coaching inn here. Eventually a small village, market and various other establishments came into being, mostly to cater for the travelling traders and other folk who needed a resting place before they pushed forward on their last leg into Guild City.
The city itself is rumoured to have been built around a fortress, one of the only ones remaining, that guarded against the raids of the orc clans to the west. At the slightest hint of a dust cloud in the west the beacons in the towers would light up to warn not only the other fortresses, but the settlements to the east to prepare themselves. Guild City was particularly adept at repelling the orcs and the fortifications were improved over centuries. Other races came to settle the city and many learning establishments grew up to cater for the hunger of knowledge that many sought out. It was here that a once very famous cartographer, whose name escapes my mind right now, brought a number of relics and established a guild for the cartographers of the world.
Nowadays the city has sprawled out and includes this very district within its municipality. Being outside the protection of its walls, there is still a certain level of autonomy here but the City Watch have a Watch House here and citizens with the right to wield weapons are very much expected to join the defence of the city when the need arises.