Cemetery Hotel Public House

Cemetery Hotel Public House

A mid-19th-century public house located at 470 Bury Road, Rochdale, with an early-20th-century decorative scheme commissioned by Crown Brewing Company Ltd of Bury. The building is constructed of red brick, painted white to the rear, with a shallow hipped slate roof.

The pub occupies an acutely-angled corner site and forms the left end of a short terrace. It presents a two-storey front elevation and three-storey rear elevation. The central entrance features a depressed arch (now with a modern canvas canopy) and a six-panelled door with overlight. Either side of the entrance are public rooms with shallow segmental-arched windows. The upper lights are tripartite, incorporating stained leaded glass in Art Nouveau design, while the single lower lights are etched glass. The left (parlour) window is etched with 'WINES & SPIRITS' and the right (vault) window with 'CROWN ALES'. Three first-floor windows have segmental-arched heads and a sill band; these now contain modern casement windows. The sill band and dentilled eaves band run around the curved corner of the building, which itself incorporates curved window frames.

The interior plan comprises three rooms arranged around a central corridor that expands into a wide drinking lobby with a bar counter at the rear.

The small inner porch has a mosaic floor bearing the name 'Cemetery Hotel'. The dado consists of vibrantly coloured green tiles with Prussian blue borders and Art Nouveau motifs in green, blue and orange. Above the dado is cream rectangular tiling with a decorative coloured border at ceiling level and a moulded cornice. The central corridor and drinking lobby feature similar Art Nouveau dado tiles.

The three rooms each have half-glazed doors set in moulded architraves, with multi-pane leaded lights and three fielded panels to the lower part; room numbers are attached.

The front right room, formerly the vault and now a pool room, has a parquet floor with fitted bench seats with plain matchboard backs to all walls, now with attached cushioned panels. A fireplace in the centre of the east wall features a cast-iron range inscribed 'L BUTTERWORTH, ROCHDALE'.

The front left parlour contains four areas of fixed seating separated by part-glazed mahogany baffle screens with leaded multi-panes, ramped heads and end columns with fluting and volutes. Higher baffle screens flank the doorway. Above the seating is a band of panelling incorporating an oval panel to each area, now painted with the numbers 1 to 4. The angled west wall has a fireplace with an ornate surround and overmantel incorporating classical columns, fluted pilasters, a circular mirror, and a hearth set within dark blue tiling.

The rear left snug is small and wedge-shaped, with fixed seating to all walls, bell pushes in the panel above, and a ramped timber baffle screen adjacent to the door. It has a reproduction fireplace and a modern hatch to the side of the servery.

The bar counter to the rear of the drinking lobby has a slightly bowed front with fielded panels. The bar superstructure has been partly remodelled with late-20th-century stained glass panels and a modern bar back fitting.

Large cellars of rubble stone and brick are located at ground-floor level at the rear of the building.

The Cemetery Hotel is believed to have been built in the 1860s and appears on the first edition 1:2500 Ordnance Survey map of 1893. It takes its name from the adjacent Rochdale Cemetery, a public cemetery which opened in 1855 on previously open fields. The pub was likely built in part to serve funeral parties attending burials at the cemetery. In the early 20th century, the pub underwent comprehensive interior refurbishment by Crown Brewery Company Ltd of Bury.