Royal Oak Hotel, eastern carriage sheds and stable range

The Royal Oak Hotel is a late 18th-century coaching inn which retains significant remains of its former livery stables and carriage yard. The hotel occupies a corner plot at the junction of South Street and Etnam Street.

Main Building

The principal building is constructed of brick laid in Flemish bond with stucco detailing and rustication to the ground floor, beneath a slate roof. It is three storeys high under a double-hipped roof concealed behind a parapet, and F-shaped in plan with a double-pile arrangement. The main elevation faces south onto Etnam Street and extends eastward to form the base of the F. Chimney stacks are of brick and emerge through the roof ridges or at gable and hipped ends.

The South Street elevation is five bays wide, with the central three bays projecting slightly from the flanking bays. The ground floor is clad with rusticated stucco. The central bay contains a double doorway within a projecting stucco doorcase topped by a shallow keystone arch beneath a cornice. The other bays each have large six-over-six sash windows set into recesses. The top rusticated band of stucco extends outward, emphasising the division between ground and first floors. The first floor is brick-built, with the principal function room identifiable by its oversized six-over-six sashes in stucco shouldered architraves. A stucco platband separates the first and second floors. The second floor has three-over-six sash windows in plain architraves to each bay. Above the second floor windows is a cornice parapet with a triangular pediment over the central three bays.

The Etnam Street elevation of the main building is also five bays wide. The ground floor continues the rusticated stucco with projected top band from around the South Street corner. At ground floor level, the two western bays are solid, the third bay has an oriel window, and the two eastern bays have ten-over-ten sash windows. The first and second storeys are in brick with six-over-six sashes in plain architraves to each bay. The South Street stucco platband continues here at the sill level of the second floor windows. The stucco cornice parapet also continues from around the corner, again concealing the roof.

The east (rear) elevation is brick and joins the rear north side of the Etnam Street elevation at an obtuse angle via a narrow north-east facing elevation with scattered openings. At ground floor level at the south end is a single-storey lobby entrance which projects eastward under a flat roof (this is excluded from the listing). The first floor has six-over-six sashes and the second floor has three-over-three sashes. A dentil detail at the eaves continues the length of the rear of the building and around beneath the hip of the roof on the east side of the Etnam Street elevation. The first floor of this elevation is lit by a three-over-three sash and a two-over-two sash, visible over the top of the adjoining stable.

North Wing

A later wing extends northward along South Street, comprising three bays with an additional window (formerly a doorway) at ground floor level at its northern end. It is three storeys high and meets the older section at eaves height beneath a unifying cornice, though below the cornice the floor levels of the two sections do not align.

The ground floor is in rusticated stucco up to the shoulders of round-headed openings which define its three bays and additional window. The top of the stucco is marked by a cornice which flows up over each opening to become a semi-circular keystone arch moulding. The openings from north to south comprise: a three-over-six sash (formerly a door), a panelled door with semi-circular fanlight (formerly a window), then two taller six-over-six sashes which almost reach ground level.

At first floor are three large six-over-six sashes in shouldered architraves with a platband at sill level. This arrangement is repeated at second floor, but with shorter three-over-six sashes.

Rear Extensions

To the rear of the north wing at its south end where it meets the older part of the hotel, there is a small outshot under a catslide from the rear slope of the main roof. A flat roof section forming a landing for a fire escape projects further east of this. North of the outshot is a mono-pitch roof over a fully glazed gallery which joins a pitched roof addition of three storeys in height. This three-storey element has a pitched roof with a lower ridge height than that of the north wing which it meets at right angles. The eaves level dentil detail present on the rest of the rear elevations stops at this point. East of the three-storey addition is a pitched-roof brick building of two storeys, and east again of this is a later 20th-century single-storey function room under a shallow pitched roof (excluded from the listing).

Stable Building Facing Etnam Street

This adjoins the east end of the main hotel block on Etnam Street and faces south. It is a two-storey brick building under a slate-covered pitched roof. At ground floor level the Etnam Street elevation has a large carriage entrance with a timber door to the west end, and a three-over-six light window to the east. At first floor level, double casement windows are centred above the two ground floor openings, with dentil decoration at the eaves. The east elevation is a gable which is solid except for a single centrally located six-over-six sash at first floor level.

The courtyard-facing north elevation has an open carriage arch at its west end with a six-light casement window above it. The east end has a single doorway at both ground and first floor levels, with no access to the first floor door. There is a small window just below eaves level east of the carriage entrance, and a three-over-three light window below that.

Interior

Skirting boards, fitted cabinets, ceiling cornices, dado and picture rails, and door and window frames generally survive well. Arched doorways are a common decorative feature. Four-panel doors throughout the building indicate an extensive Victorian refurbishment. Alterations in the 20th century mean that none of the ground floor rooms retain the exact layouts depicted in an 1888 plan, though the older plan remains readable. The most common changes have been the removal of internal walls to enlarge rooms and the addition of partitions for toilets and en-suites.

The main door on South Street opens via a small porch to an east-west running main hallway with a staircase to the rear. A corridor runs north from the hallway to a second, central stair. The stairway in the main hall is open string with a simple rounded handrail and two slim, plain, square-profile balusters to a step. The central stair is the same style but rises all the way to the second floor with a series of right-angled turns.

The large ground floor room with windows to South Street was formerly a commercial room, small coffee room and private banqueting room. Now one room, it has a deep ceiling cornice to its northern end. The doorway to this enlarged room is set at an angle to the main entrance hallway and is decorated with a curved archway over the door head, margin lights and slender Corinthian columns on top of bases with panels decorated with swags. This doorway appears to have been relocated during a 20th-century remodelling when what were three front rooms were knocked through into one. Other ground floor rooms include an L-shaped bar with late 20th-century fittings to the south-east, and kitchen and toilets to the north-east.

At its top, the main hall stair makes a right-angled turn to the right to a first floor landing from where the main function room is accessed to the front of the building. This main room is now divided into two with the smaller section to its south end; the whole is decorated with pilasters and a moulded cornice. Other rooms on the first and second floors are bedrooms with partitioned en-suites. Some bedrooms retain simple fireplaces, occasionally with cast iron grates.

The attic space has been stripped back to timber frame partitions and bare brick walls. The roof structure is quite shallow in pitch with trusses having a king post and a single collar with no tie beam. There are cellars under the South Street elevation of the main building and its north wing, accessed from stairs down from within the flat-roofed rear lobby and the northern entrance on South Street.

Eastern Carriage Sheds and Stable Range

The eastern boundary of the site, across the courtyard east of the rear of the hotel building, is marked by a north-south orientated stable and carriage shed range constructed of brick and timber with slate and corrugated metal roofs. The southernmost part of the range is a single-storey brick building under a mono-pitch metal roof. The south elevation is solid brick; the west elevation is timber framed with brick infill. This was formerly a two-storey stable block which has been reduced in height and partly rebuilt.

Adjoining the former stable building and continuing the range to the north are two single-storey carriage sheds, open on their west sides where the pitched roofs are supported by wooden columns. The first, narrower shed range has a corrugated metal roof; the second, deeper plan northern shed has a slate roof.