The Red Lion Public House

The Red Lion is a late 19th-century public house with later 20th-century internal alterations. It is built of rendered and painted red brick with painted stone dressings, ridge and gable chimneys, and a slate roof. The plan is an irregular L-shape with a stepped service range to the west.

The front elevation is near-symmetrical and three bays wide, two and a half storeys high. A wide, three-light display window dominates the centre, with the lights having semi-circular heads within a wide, shallow-arched opening. To the left is a pair of semi-circular arch-headed doorways with painted keyblocks; the outer opening provides access to an enclosed passage, and the other was formerly an entry to a front bar. The right-hand doorway provides the main entrance to the public house. All doorways have moulded surrounds and overlights. A wide display fascia is supported by deep brackets rising from corbels flanking the door and window openings. A fascia cornice features ball finials at each end. The three upper-floor windows have moulded, keyed and shouldered surrounds, with undivided sash frames. The upper floor has a moulded and keyed sill band and shallow window surrounds, detailed similarly to those below, but now contain 20th-century two-light casement frames.

The bar interiors were remodelled in the late 20th century, but moulded cornices have been retained, along with a geometric patterned encaustic tile floor in the main entrance passage.

A public house was marked on this site on the 1855 Piggot-Smith map, and the present building is shown on the 1887 Ordnance Survey map, suggesting a rebuilding or comprehensive remodelling between those dates. The public house sits in the heart of a former specialist manufacturing district, and is now considered to be of international interest. The exterior detailing is similar to that found on many of the small, domestic-scale manufactories in the surrounding area, but it was clearly constructed as a public house.