The Sportsman and the Marhaba takeaway

A public house built in 1930 to the design of architects H A Hoyle and C Smith of Huddersfield, commissioned by brewers Seth Senior and Sons. The building was altered by Hammonds Brewery around 1950, when the public bar was opened out into a single space and a new curved bar with wooden banquette seating and side tables were carefully integrated.

The pub is constructed of squared and coursed quarry-faced stone with ashlar dressings and a slate-covered roof with ridge tiles. It is set on a corner plot facing Fitzwilliam Street to the south and St John's Road to the east, with a broadly L-shaped plan across two storeys and a cellar.

The exterior is rendered in a neo-Georgian style. The main street fronts feature tall single-paned sashes to the ground floor with sand-blasted glass bearing an 'H' emblem, and shorter six-over-six paned sashes to the first floor, all set in deeply-moulded surrounds beneath moulded lintels. The ground floor sashes have cills supported on corbels. The main corner entrance is approached by stone steps and set into a bay with rusticated ashlar quoins. It has a heavily moulded doorcase with a lintel supported on consoles, containing wooden double doors with five panels each carved with a plain roundel. Above the entrance is a moulded and fielded relief panel inscribed "SPORTSMANS ARMS / 1930". The south front contains six bays of sash windows, with a third entrance bay from the left featuring a moulded doorway with leaded transom light inscribed "SPORTSMANS ARMS". The doorway is flanked by a Bass brewery roundel and has a Bass beer barrel suspended from its lintel. The east elevation comprises seven bays of sashes. At the north-west street corner is another entrance bay with ashlar quoins, now serving a takeaway. The building features a hipped roof behind an ashlar parapet and tall quarry-faced stone chimney stacks with red chimney pots. The rear elevations, facing a small yard, have a less refined finish of squared and coursed stone with largely single or paired one-over-one sashes. A single storey stone lean-to is built into the angle of the yard.

Internally, the ground floor has a public bar flanked by a tap room and gentlemen's lavatories on one side, and a smoke room and ladies' lavatories on the other. Beyond the smoke room to the north is a kitchen, and accessible only from Rook Street is a former pub dining room, shop and living kitchen, now converted to a takeaway. The first floor comprises six former guest bedrooms, a bathroom and WC at the south, and former landlord's accommodation with a sitting room, two bedrooms and a bathroom at the north. The basement contains beer cellars with a barrel run, a former wash house and former kitchen with pantry.

The main entrance leads through a 1930 full-height glazed screen vestibule with a colourful Art Deco terrazzo floor into the public bar. Originally divided into two rooms and an off sales department with a central servery, this was opened out into a single space around 1950. It has a parquet floor and curved wooden banquette fixed seating with integrated side tables and baffles. Part of the floor has been replaced in tile around the bar. A central octagonal column supports the first floor above. The 1950s curved bar features a sweeping canopy; the bar top has been replaced but the bar back is original, incorporating fluted columns, glass shelving and mosaic mirror panels with integrated wooden cupboards. The former tap room retains a tiled floor, original curved fixed banquette seating with bell pushes, and an original fluted wooden fireplace surround. The gentlemen's lavatories have a flush timber door, terrazzo floor and tiled walls incorporating hand-painted tiles depicting sporting scenes—horse-racing, shooting, sailing and football—along with original urinals and cistern. The former smoke room has matching banquette seating with bell pushes. The ladies' lavatories have tiled walls and wooden shelves. A double-winder staircase with wooden handrail and stick balusters ascends to the guest bedrooms on the first floor. The north aspect of the ground floor, accessible only from Rook Street, has been converted to a takeaway shop with modern kitchen units.

The first floor retains the original layout of six guest bedrooms, a bathroom and WC opening off a corridor, with original panelled doors and cornices to ceilings; one bedroom contains a tiled fireplace. Modern kitchen units have been inserted into the largest bedroom. The first floor above the takeaway shop contains the former landlord's flat, originally comprising two bedrooms, a bathroom and sitting room.

The basement beneath the public bar is accessed by a stone winder staircase and contains beer cellars with flagstone floors, former pantry, washroom and coal store, retaining the original barrel run. Beneath the takeaway is a former kitchen, pantry and coal store.

Modern sanitary ware in the ladies' lavatories, modern kitchen units in The Sportsman, and modern kitchen units in the Marhaba takeaway are not of special architectural or historic interest.