The Wheatsheaf, including bowling green viewing terrace

The Wheatsheaf, including bowling green viewing terrace

This is a public house built between 1936 and 1938 to designs by W A Hartley. It is constructed of brown brick and render with painted-stone dressings and applied half-timbering, under pitched and hipped slate roofs. The building is two storeys and built in the Brewers' Tudor style.

The pub has a squat U-shaped plan and is set at a slight angle to Mill Lane, facing the junction of Mill Lane with Reginald Road, Hawthorne Road and Leach Lane. A parallelogram-shaped bowling green lies to the rear with a viewing terrace along its eastern side. Internally, a central service corridor runs east-west forming the bar servery, with a public bar off to the front left and a buffet and former off-sales off to the front right. Drinking lobbies at each rear corner provide access to a bar parlour, smoke room and dining room contained within rear projections.

All the building's windows have plain leaded glazing.

Front (north) elevation

The principal elevation incorporates a central section of painted stone that projects forward slightly with canted sides. A large arched opening to the centre of the ground floor originally provided open access to a bottle store and pulley system that lifted goods up to a first-floor cellar. This has since been in-filled and a doorway and windows inserted. The arch is flanked by two-storey buttresses which also frame a frontispiece above, including a first-floor niche and a stepped parapet. The ground floor is lit by cross windows, whilst the first floor is lit by paired mullioned and single-light windows. A doorway to the right with a mullioned overlight originally led into the off-sales, now a food preparation area.

Flanking the central section are gabled bays with brick ground floors, half-timbering to the first floors and gables, and modern signage boards. Both bays are lit by six-light mullioned and transomed windows on the ground floor and three-light mullioned windows on the first floor. The pub's two main entrances are set at each end of the elevation and consist of Tudor-arched doorways containing partly-glazed panelled double doors. Single-storey flat-roofed brick projections containing the pub's toilets exist at each far end of the elevation. The western end also has an additional two-storey block with a half-timbered first floor that forms part of the landlord's private accommodation and which is accessed by a plain domestic-style panelled door on the ground floor leading to a private entrance hall and stair.

East and west side elevations

The east elevation is more plainly detailed but still has a brick ground floor, leaded windows, and some half-timbering to the first floor. At the western end of the building a high brick wall encloses a small service yard containing a former wash house and coal store.

Rear (south) elevation

This elevation overlooks the bowling green. The main central part of the pub is rendered at the rear and is lit by three-light mullioned windows on the first floor. Attached in front is an early to mid-20th-century, flat-roofed, rendered two-storey extension with a tall chimneystack, and attached in front of this is a single-storey extension of a similar date (depicted on a 1950 architect's plan as the 'bowling green verandah') with leaded windows, which has been truncated at its western end by the addition of another single-storey flat-roofed extension; all three additions are not of special interest and are excluded from the listing. A modern smoking canopy, which has also been attached to the verandah room's south elevation, is not of special interest and is also excluded from the listing.

Two-storey projections (containing the bar parlour and smoke room) exist to the east and west with brick ground floors, close-studding style half-timbering to the first floor, and pyramidal roofs. Each projection's ground floor projects forward as a canted bay and is surmounted by an embattled parapet. Both projections are lit by mullioned and transomed windows on the ground floor and mullioned windows on the first floor; an eight-light mullioned and transomed window on the ground floor of the eastern projection has been partially blocked up and converted into a four-light window. Set to the western end of the elevation is a shallower two-storey projection (containing the dining room) with a brick ground floor, rendered first floor and a stepped parapet hiding the roof from view. A large eight-light mullioned and transomed ground-floor window has a modern inserted fire door to the centre. A four-light mullioned window exists to the first floor and a six-light mullioned and transomed window exists to the ground floor of the west return.

Ancillary structures

The bowling green to the rear has a concrete and painted-brick tiered viewing terrace along its eastern side. This terrace, which is legally classed as a structure, is included within the listing.

Interior

The plan layout remains largely unchanged internally. Sloping floors exist throughout the building due to subsidence from coal mining in the area.

The left (eastern) entrance leads into a vestibule with a panelled dado and two sets of double doors with Tudor-arched etched glass panels reading 'Bar Parlour' and 'Public Bar' and leaded overlights. The doors lead into a drinking lobby which maintains the panelled dado of the vestibule and has toilets off to the eastern side. Glazed double doors in the lobby's north wall with Tudor-arched heads, etched glass panels reading 'Public Bar' and a multipaned overlight lead into the public bar, which has fixed-bench seating incorporating bell pushes, and a brick and stone fireplace with a gas-fire insert.

A service corridor running east-west through the centre of the pub forms the bar servery and has original counters at each end in the public bar and buffet. The bar counter in the public bar retains its original bar back and top lighting as depicted on a 1936 plan, and a pot shelf with leaded-glazed panels and rosette relief decoration.

The bar parlour (now a games room) at the rear of the eastern drinking lobby retains its original glazed door with Tudor-arched etched-glass panel reading 'Bar Parlour' and most of its fixed-bench seating (a section along the east wall has been removed). A heavily painted Tudor-style brick and stone fireplace has a later gas-fire insert.

A Tudor-arched doorway in the eastern drinking lobby's south-west corner leads to a small rear lobby providing access to the bowling green. A later partition wall and double doors have been inserted on the western side, which lead into a narrow room that was formerly known as the verandah room and has been altered and truncated, and is not of special interest.

A former off-sales lies off to the north side of the servery corridor and is now used as a kitchen preparation area. It retains its entrance vestibule frame and leaded overlight, but the off-sales counter has been removed.

The right (western) main entrance leads into a similarly styled vestibule and drinking lobby as that to the eastern end of the building, but here the vestibule doors are etched with the words 'Buffet' and 'Smoke Room'. Off to the north side of the lobby, glazed double doors with Tudor-arched heads and etched glass panels reading 'Buffet' lead into the buffet, which has a bar counter, bar back and pot shelf in the same style as those to the public bar, but shorter in length. The bar back retains its original shutters. The original fixed-bench seating survives, along with bell pushes and a Tudor-style painted-stone fireplace with a tiled insert and modern gas fire. The fireplaces in this western half of the building are slightly larger than those in the eastern rooms.

A glazed door to the rear of the western drinking lobby is in the same style as those to the rest of the main rooms and incorporates etched glass reading 'Smoke Room'. This leads into the smoke room, which is the same size and dimensions as the bar parlour at the opposite end of the pub. It retains fixed-bench seating and a Tudor-style painted-stone fireplace matching that of the buffet, with a tiled insert and modern gas fire. A later doorway has been inserted into the room's west wall to connect into an adjacent dining room, which has wall panelling up to picture rail height, applied ceiling beams, a timber fire surround with a gas fire insert, and fixed-bench seating. The dining room's main entrance lies on the north side and is accessed off a passageway that runs westwards of the drinking lobby. At the western end of the passageway are ladies toilets and off to the north side is a private hall and straight stair flight accessing the landlord's first-floor accommodation. The first floor was not inspected, but it is understood that the original first-floor cellar, which was served by a pulley system, has since been converted into a bedroom.