Queens Arms Public House

BIRMINGHAM

997/0/10271 NEWHALL STREET 29-APR-04 Queens Arms Public House

GV II

Public House. c.1870, remodelled 1901 and further altered late C20. Remodelling to the designs of Joseph. D. Ward, architect, for Mitchell and Butlers, Brewers. Red brick with painted stone dressings and moulded brick, faience and coloured tile decoration. Tall brick chimney stacks with corbelled caps, and composition slate and Welsh slate roof coverings. PLAN: L-shaped street corner plan with former and current entrances to both street elevations and to splayed corner. EXTERIOR: 5-bay Newhall Street frontage of 2 storeys, rising from a shallow chamfered plinth. Vehicle entrance with iron double gates to left-hand end bay gives access to rear yard. To right, entrance doorway with C20 6-panel door beneath shallow segmental arched head with painted keyblock and hood mould. Further right, triple sash windows with asymmetrically-divided sashes and shallow-arched heads with linked heads detailed as doorway arch. Right-hand end formed by public house display frontage made up of a doorway to the left, now blocked and 2 wide windows with 3-pane transoms above stall risers, the openings flanked by reeded and marbled pilasters with volute capitals. Above, moulded signage fascia and cornice. First floor with 5 sash windows arranged 2:1:1, all 2 over 2 panes with arched heads with advanced painted keystones and bracketed sills within moulded brick sill band. Above, bracketed eaves band below decorative eaves fascia, this detail carried around onto the Charlotte Street frontage. Right-hand end with canted oriel below shallow slated roof, all set within projecting gablet with curved brackets and decorative barge boards. Splayed doorway to corner with pilaster surround and diminutive segmental pediment to fascia above door head. Above, curved polychrome tile and faience panel with raised lettering which reads ' MITCHELL AND BUTLER GOLD MEDAL ALES'. The panel continues above the curved eaves board, its upper part with minature pilasters, ball finials, segmental pediment and lettering which reads ' THE QUEENS ARMS '. Charlotte Street elevation almost entirely with ground floor display frontage incorporating 2 doorways and 4 windows framed by pilasters. Upper floor with blind opening to left, and canted oriel below a gablet, as on the Newhall Street elevation. INTERIOR: Plan form modified to create communal bar area but retaining moulded cornice plasterwork, and wide arched opening to smaller bar on Charlotte Street side in which the architects drawings for the 1901 remodelling are displayed. A prominently- sited late C19 public house with lavish external detail resulting from a 1901 remodelling, and reflecting the attempt to improve both the image and levels of com fort of public houses in Birmingham promoted by the city's brewers and licensing magistrates in the late C19.