Templar Hotel, including 6 Templar Street

This public house dates from the early 19th century and was extended in the mid to late 19th century. It underwent significant alteration and remodelling in 1928 to designs by Garside and Pennington of Pontefract for Melbourne Brewery (Leeds) Ltd, with further alterations to the ground floor in later years. Attached to the eastern end is a former brewhouse, also probably early 19th century with later alterations, now used as a store.

Construction and Materials

The building is constructed of brick with a faience-clad ground floor on the two principal elevations and stuccoed upper floors. It has painted-stone dressings and replaced concrete-tile roof coverings.

Layout

The pub has a long linear plan running alongside Templar Street with an additional principal elevation facing west onto Vicar Lane. The former brewhouse at 6 Templar Street is attached at the eastern end.

Exterior

The pub rises three storeys plus basement. The ground floor is clad with green and buff-coloured faience manufactured by Burmantofts of Leeds, while the upper floors are stuccoed.

North Elevation (Templar Street)

The seven-bay north elevation consists of six bays forming the original part of the pub (with a modillion band to the eaves cornice) and a taller single-bay mid to late 19th-century addition at the western end, which also presents a two-bay frontage onto Vicar Lane. Both sections have hipped roofs and two brick chimneystacks survive.

The ground floor features a series of large mullioned and leaded windows with quoined surrounds and hoodmoulds with foliate bosses or stops. The windows have upper panels incorporating stained-glass motifs depicting a stylised knight in armour and shields (all except the windows lighting the toilets, which have ventilators), with replaced lower panels. Though it has been suggested the stained-glass upper panels might be later replacements, the styling, colour and materials suggest they are most likely contemporary with the 1928 works.

Between the ground and first floors runs a deep frieze across the entire elevation, continuing around to the west elevation facing Vicar Lane. The frieze incorporates relief signage lettering in red reading 'TEMPLAR HOTEL' at the west and east ends and 'MELBOURNE ALES' in the centre, separated by smaller signage lettering over two entrances reading 'LOUNGE' and 'VAULTS' (the vaults doorway has been sealed up internally). The entrances have Tudor-arched doorways with panelled doors, carved spandrels and shallow overlights with leaded and stained glazing.

The upper floors have horned-sash windows with flat or squared heads, except the first-floor window of the mid to late 19th-century addition, which has a segmental-arched head with a hoodmould with foliate bosses. The second-floor window above has a continuous hoodmould running across the single bay of the mid to late 19th-century addition and around to the west elevation. A stringcourse runs below the second-floor windows on the north elevation, and blank raised panels separate some of the windows.

West Elevation (Vicar Lane)

The two-bay west elevation is formed by the taller mid to late 19th-century addition and is identically styled to the bay facing Templar Street, with the addition of a ground-floor entrance in the same style as those on Templar Street. Above the doorway the frieze (continued from the north elevation) has relief lettering reading 'SALOON', and above the elevation's ground-floor window is lettering reading 'TEMPLAR HOTEL'.

6 Templar Street (Former Brewhouse)

This two-storey, two-bay former brewhouse attached to the eastern end of the Templar Hotel is constructed of bare-faced brick with a pitched roof. The ground floor appears to have been rebuilt and has a large loading doorway to the left with a painted-sandstone sill and lintel, and replaced doors and vents. To the right is a doorway with two steps accessing a recessed four-panel door with a plain overlight, providing a private entrance to an internal stair leading to the landlord's accommodation and the pub's rear service areas. Two casement and fixed-pane windows with painted-sandstone sills exist at first-floor level. Set high up beneath the first-floor windows is a stringcourse. A deep fascia board sits just below the eaves.

The rear elevations of both the pub and former brewhouse face onto a narrow yard and are rendered without windows.

Interior

Prior to the 1928 works, the pub comprised three rooms internally on the ground floor with domestic and hotel accommodation on the upper floors. In 1928 the ground-floor rooms were opened up to create a series of inter-linked spaces (recorded on a 1928 plan of proposed alterations) that remain today. At the Vicar Lane end is a saloon, in the centre are the vaults, hall and toilets, and at the eastern end is a lounge.

Entrances and Vestibules

Both the lounge and saloon entrances have vestibules. The saloon vestibule has panelled walls and a panelled door with a glazed upper panel, while the lounge vestibule has blue and cream glazed-tiled walls and partly glazed and panelled inner double-doors with a stained and leaded overlight featuring a shield motif. Both vestibules have modern floor coverings, though it is possible that terrazzo, mosaic or tiled floors survive underneath, in keeping with other Melbourne Brewery pubs.

Ground Floor

The ground-floor interior is decorated in Brewer's Tudor style with applied ceiling beams and wall panelling to all spaces up to picture rail height (some of that to the western half appears to be replaced). Some cast-iron radiators survive.

A long bar servery with a curved north-east corner lies at the centre of the building alongside the south wall and runs the length between the vaults and the hall. The servery has been shortened (probably in the 1970s) by approximately one third at the western end by the saloon and has lost its curved north-west corner, but retains its original panelled front. The wall panelling continues into the bar servery and the bar back, and above the servery is a suspended 1970s pot shelf with leaded-glazed panels.

Fixed-bench seating with arm-rests and baffles incorporating a mixture of plain and stained and leaded-glass panels survive in the saloon, vaults and lounge. Similarly-styled 1970s seating has been inserted in the vaults in front of the sealed-up vaults entrance and the former position of a fireplace (a 1920s Tudor-style fireplace now on the first floor appears most probably to have been relocated from here when the seating was introduced).

Beyond the vaults are the toilets (modernised internally) and hall. A panelled and partly-glazed screen in front of the toilets has been removed to widen access through to the hall and lounge. The toilets are accessed through paired doorways with panelled doors incorporating glazed Tudor-arched upper panels. A drinking shelf exists on the hall's north wall. A wide flat-arched opening leads from the hall into the lounge, which has fixed-bench seating on all four sides with bell pushes (now disconnected) and a 1920s carved timber fire surround on the east wall with replaced glazed tiles to the cheeks and a modern electric fire insert.

Connection to 6 Templar Street

A doorway in the lounge's south-east corner, with a panelled door incorporating a stained-glass Tudor-arched upper panel depicting a countryside scene and a large shield motif, leads through to 6 Templar Street and a small hallway with a 1920s terrazzo floor and 1970s partitioning. A doorway on the north side of the hallway with a 1920s door leads down into the basement, and an adjacent fire door set within the 1970s partitioning leads into the main part of the hallway (off the Templar Street entrance) and a stair flight leading up to the first floor of the pub.

A doorway in the east wall leads into the main part of 6 Templar Street, which formed the brewhouse. The space is open to the roof (concealed from view by a flat ceiling) and has a modern kitchen sub-structure inserted on the south side and a modern extraction system. Timber trapdoors in the floor access a barrel chute into the basement.

Upper Floors

The 19th-century stair flight leading to the pub's first floor lies off the private Templar Street entrance within 6 Templar Street and has modern tread coverings and a replaced 1920s balustrade and newel posts. An additional 19th-century stair flight between the ground and first floor originally located within the main part of the pub (in the area now occupied by the toilets) was removed during the 1928 works, but the wider upper flight between the first and second floors was retained and survives with a replaced 1920s balustrade and newel posts identical to that at the eastern end of the building. On the first-floor landing of the main central stair is a large blocked-up decorative arched opening that at one point led through into a neighbouring building (now demolished and replaced by a 1960s or 1970s building).

The upper floors contain the landlord's flat and former hotel accommodation, with corridors or hallways along the southern wall and rooms off to the north side and western end. The second floor and the western half of the first floor were not altered during the 1928 works, except for the replacement of a few doors. A mixture of 19th-century and 1920s features survive on the upper floors, including 19th-century four and six-panel doors and 1920s five-panel doors, built-in cupboards, floorboard floors, moulded cornicing and architraves, two 1920s fireplaces (including a painted surround with a Tudor-arched opening and tiling most probably relocated from the vaults), and a late 19th-century painted fire surround in a room at the western end of the second floor.

Basement

The basements of the pub and the neighbouring former brewhouse at number 6 are interconnected and consist of a series of mainly large spaces with concrete floors and a barrel chute from the former brewhouse.