The Swan Public House

The Swan Public House

This is a public house on Bishopgate Street in York. The building dates from the mid-19th century but was substantially remodelled inside in 1936 by the Leeds architectural practice Kitson, Parish, Ledgard & Pyman, working on commission from brewers Joshua Tetley & Son Ltd of Leeds.

The exterior is rendered brick painted white with a slate roof and brick chimneys. It is two storeys with cellars. The narrow frontage to Bishopgate Street comprises two bays and sits adjacent to a short terrace of six houses and a corner shop on its south side. The Clementhorpe elevation features a gable wall with brick coping, six ground-floor bays on the main house and a further three-bay single-storey flat-roofed section to the left.

The Bishopgate Street elevation has a wide doorway in the second bay with moulded architrave painted black, fitted with two steps and two-panelled double doors with rectangular overlight containing modern coloured leaded glass depicting a swan. The first bay has a wide six-light casement window with moulded architrave painted black and rectangular leaded panes. The ground floor has a chamfered corner. Two first-floor windows have projecting sills and modern two-light casements. A square timber gutter on brackets runs across the elevation. A tall brick chimney stands to the south side.

The Clementhorpe elevation has a doorway in the fourth bay with moulded architrave painted black, containing one step and a four-panelled door with rectangular overlight of rectangular leaded panes. Narrow windows flank this door, each with two-light casements. Four-light casement windows light the first, second and sixth bays. All ground-floor windows in the main house have moulded architraves painted black and rectangular leaded panes. Four first-floor windows have projecting sills and modern two-light casements. A relief panel depicting a swan sits between the third and fourth first-floor windows, with the words "THE SWAN" in modern relief lettering beneath. A tall rendered brick chimney rises on the east side. The single-storey section contains three single-light windows with projecting sills; the outer windows have ventilation grilles above the glass. Metal fencing protects the roof edge, and a brick retaining wall runs along the side elevation, rising two storeys to the rear.

The interior retains many fixtures and fittings from the 1936 scheme. The building follows a distinctive plan with a narrow street frontage, small lobby on the south side opening into a corridor that runs the full length of the building and widens in front of the central servery to form a 'drinking lobby'. The servery features side hatches serving the public bar to the front and smoke room to the rear. An out-sales department with separate entrance on Clementhorpe stands behind the servery. A staircase to first-floor accommodation sits at the rear of the corridor, with separate men's and women's toilets beyond the smoke room and steps down to the cellar beneath.

The inner lobby contains panelled double doors with lights to the upper sections and a narrow rectangular overlight, all with rectangular leaded panes. The public bar and smoke room are accessed through fielded-panel doors with bottom-hinged opening overlights of rectangular leaded panes. A similar door with fixed rectangular leaded overlight provides access to the first-floor staircase. Toilet doors are two-panelled and painted white. The servery displays glazed screenwork over the main counter, side hatches and out-sales hatch all featuring rectangular leaded panes. A borrowed light between smoke room and corridor contains rectangular leaded panes.

Terrazzo flooring extends through the corridor, drinking lobby and public bar. Fitted bench seating lines the public bar and smoke room, with a bell-push rail in the smoke room. The lobby and out-sales have square cream and green tiles. Toilets feature white rectangular tiles with black tile coping and narrow ribbon bands of black and white, together with porcelain urinals. A simple moulded cornice runs through the corridor, drinking lobby, public bar and smoke room, with picture rails to the public bar and smoke room. Dado panelling with tiled frieze above the corridor and drinking lobby appears to be a more recent addition. The smoke room contains a nineteenth-century style fire surround, likely a replacement.

The Swan operated as a beerhouse from 1861, though trade directories did not identify the proprietor's main business as a beer retailer until 1896; previously it had been recorded as a grocer. Joshua Tetley's, the largest of the pre-war West Riding brewers, acquired the pub in 1899. No plans survive from before the 1930s alterations, but licensing records from 1902 show the building then had a smoke room, dram shop, and bottle and jug department. The 1936 remodelling was undertaken by Kitson, Parish, Ledgard & Pyman, the architectural partnership founded in the mid-1920s that became a leading commercial practice in Leeds responsible for several of the city's notable civic and commercial buildings of that period. The practice developed a distinctive house style for Tetley's, making use of generously proportioned varnished joinery in pub interiors combined with clear rectangular leaded lights in screenwork, windows and overlights. The Swan's present layout conforms to the architects' ground-floor plan drawing dated 1936.