Swathe of inter-war pubs listed

The Government has agreed with the results of research carried out by Historic England and has listed a number of inter-war pubs on the grounds the buildings represent the best surviving examples of a building type “which is stitched into the fabric of English culture”.

The pubs, most listed at Grade II and one upgraded to II*, are local landmarks. Their design was shaped by the “improved pub” movement that followed the First World War.

Between 1918 and 1939 breweries across the country rebuilt thousands of pubs, in the process they created bigger and better pubs with restaurants, gardens and community meeting spaces. These were designed to attract more respectable customers and appeal to families and particularly women.

The listed pubs include:

• The Black Horse, Birmingham, built 1929-30, upgraded to Grade II*
• The Berkeley Hotel, Scunthorpe, built late 1930s
• The Daylight Inn, Petts Wood, built 1935
• The Duke William, Stoke on Trent, built 1929
• The Wheatsheaf, Merseyside, built in 1938
• The Gatehouse, Norwich, built 1934
• The Brookhill Tavern, Birmingham, built 1927-28
• The White Hart, Grays, Essex, built 1938
• Biggin Hall Hotel, Coventry, built 1923
• The Angel, Hayes, Middlesex, built 1926

Around 3,000 pubs were built during the inter-war years. “They are now a sadly overlooked and threatened building type, with very few surviving today,” said Historic England.

One of the pubs earmarked for listing through this project was the Carlton Tavern in Kilburn, London, recently demolished without warning before it could be protected.

Several of the newly listed pubs were built by Truman’s Brewery, based in east London. These include the Royal Oak, on the doorstep of the famous Columbia Road Flower market in the capital’s Hoxton. It is called an “early pub” because it serves market traders from 9am on Sundays. It is also a sought-after filming location.

Read the Historic England news article

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Roger Milne