Unicorn Hotel

Unicorn Hotel

A public house with accommodation, rebuilt in 1924 by Graves and Ellerton with minor later alterations. The building is constructed in brick with faience detailing, slate roofs and timber windows.

The plan is aligned north-south, with a long smoke room to the west of a central hall and a servery with bars to the east, now extended into a former office at the south end.

The building stands on the corner of Church Street and Joiner Lane, adjacent to Pall Mall House, a key building in the Smithfield Conservation Area. The north-facing front is a three-storey neo-Georgian design of three bays in symmetrical arrangement, with a further splayed corner bay to the left. Red brick is laid in English Garden Wall bond with faience detailing. The ground floor faience is blue with cream string bands above. Quoins flank the facade with a plinth, a wide first-floor sill band above a moulded string band, and a dentilled cornice with coped parapet. The flanking windows have moulded surrounds with projecting sills (corbelled at first floor) and corner labels. Ground-floor windows have timber transoms with leaded casements over, while those above have mullions and transoms with leaded casements (the first-floor left mullion is missing). The central bay is all faience, with pilasters spanning the first and second floors and windows between, separated by lettering reading UNICORN/HOTEL. The string band forms an open pediment over the door with an attenuated keystone below. The square door surround has pilasters with capitals, entasis and bases running into the plinth. The timber double doors are three-panelled with a leaded overlight. The corner bay mirrors the adjacent bay's detailing.

The Joiner Street elevation to the left returns with seven bays. The first bay (from the right) matches the detailing of the front and corner bays but has two ground-floor windows, the left one a former doorway lacking a surround with a stone plinth below. The eaves are exposed with an ogee gutter and downpipe after the third bay. The plinth runs the full length and continues beyond a wagon entrance in the seventh bay to a splayed corner at ground floor, with corbelling brickwork forming an angle above. The string band continues across bays two to four, terminating over a doorway with faience jambs. This door is plain with a leaded overlight and projecting lamp. Bays two, three, five and six have ground-floor windows matching the front elevation, two retaining etched lower panes. All windows above have timber mullions and transoms with splayed brick lintels. The first floor has leaded glazing in all panes, the second floor only in the upper panes. Various modern lights, signage and satellite aerials are affixed, and the wagon entrance is closed with modern railings through which the setted surface of the yard is visible.

The rear of the Joiner Street range is obscured at ground floor but has a single mullion-and-transom window at first floor with a splayed brick lintel and stone sill with leaded glass in all panes. The verge has a faience coping. Inner walls facing the open yard have timber windows, mostly of mullion-and-transom type with leaded glass.

Interior

The cellar retains a lift to the ground floor bar, a dumb waiter, a wash-cellar sink on tiled stands, blocked former steps, a barrel drop and coal drop and bin. The ground floor retains decorative black, grey and orange tiling in the porch and truncated on the former passage wall to the Joiner Street entrance. The floor plan is relatively intact with extensive panelling, door joinery and fittings and seating surviving, along with the servery featuring patterned leaded glazing. Particularly notable are the bell pushes and faience fireplaces with timber surrounds in the former smoke room, as well as the elaborate surround to the gents' doorway with pedimented lintel. The patterned leaded skylight, now relocated above the smoke room, is thought to be original. The staircase with original balustrade survives on the ground, first and second floors.

At first and second floor the historic floor plan survives extremely well, even in the lavatories. The first floor landing is wainscoted and all three-panel bedroom doors and their architraves survive, together with at least one bedroom fireplace and almost all picture rails and coving. The dining room retains its panelling and plaster decoration, light fittings and serving hatch with dumb waiter in the servery, as well as the glazed doors to the dining room and ladies' lavatory. The door to the landing has been replaced. The windows to the front rooms of the first floor have secondary glazing which appears to be historic.

The second floor is also wainscoted, with glazed doors to the lavatory, kitchen and dumb waiter area. Larder shelving and a probable copper stand survive in the kitchen. All three-panel bedroom and bathroom doors survive along with four fireplaces with surrounds and hearths, two built-in wardrobes, picture rails, coving and skirting.