Hare And Hounds

The Hare and Hounds is a public house dating from around 1800, with alterations made in the late 19th century and a significant remodelling of the interior around 1925. It is constructed of painted brick with glazed tile cladding to the ground floor of the street elevation, under a Welsh slate roof with an end ridge stack.

The building has a single bay, double-depth plan, comprising two public rooms and a central lobby linked by a full-depth corridor. Its front elevation is three storeys high, rising to four storeys at the rear. The street façade features mottled blue-brown tiles on the ground floor. The entrance is on the left, with a 20th-century panelled door. To the right is a three-light window with tile-faced mullions and frosted, leaded glass to the lower light, dating from the 1925 remodelling. The first floor has three single-light sash windows, and the upper floor has three two-light casement windows with transoms. The rear elevation incorporates a mix of sash and casement windows.

The interior is accessed via two public bars and a central open drinking lobby from the full-depth corridor along the left-hand side of the building. Interior porches, lined with grey-green and cream-coloured tiling, serve the front and rear entrances at either end of the corridor. The corridor itself is faced to half height with dark brown mottled and plain brown tiling. The front bar, known as ‘VAULTS’, is also faced with tiling and backs onto the drinking lobby. The bar counter in the central lobby, with two-bay returns to the front and rear bars, has a plain panelled front and supports a glazed superstructure modelled to resemble sash windows, featuring decorative leaded glazing from 1925. Panelled doors lead to both bars and the cellar, each with glazed upper panels and rectangular overlights. The front entrance lobby has half-glazed double doors beneath a wide overlight. There is fixed seating in both bars. A stick baluster stair with a panelled understair partition is located within the rear part of the corridor.

The Hare and Hounds represents a city centre public house of early 19th-century origins, remodelled to a high standard around 1925, retaining the contemporary plan form and almost all of the original interior detail, including bar counters, back bars, bar superstructures, door joinery, and glazing. This level of survival from the period is considered rare, particularly in a city centre location.