Brookhill Tavern

Brookhill Tavern

A public house built in 1927–8, designed by George Bernard Cox of Harrison & Cox for Mitchells and Butlers.

The building is constructed of brown, hand-finished bricks laid in English bond with painted stone dressings and a plain tile roof. The architectural style is loosely Jacobean.

The building has two storeys with a basement and follows a butterfly plan. It faces west towards a road junction, with angled wings projecting at either side. The eastern face fronts extensive terraced gardens, with a bowling green situated on higher ground.

The western entrance front features a central door with an elaborate moulded stone surround and stone pilasters at either side. Flanking the entrance are paired windows with mullion and transom divisions. The first-floor windows are paired single casements beneath a deep band at sill level and below the eaves, which are ornamented with moulded square bosses set at regular intervals. The central window has an overthrow rising above the eaves and topped with a sceptre finial. Each angled wing has a large, projecting chimney stack with three flues; the lower body of each stack features diaper patterns created by projecting bricks. At the base of the left-hand chimney is a further doorway with lateral pilasters and moulded surround. Beyond the chimneys on each side, a central moulded drainpipe with a hopper bearing the entwined M&B initials of Mitchell and Butlers brewery descends the wall.

The south-western front has a gable at the left containing two three-light mullioned and transomed windows to the ground floor and a canted oriel at first-floor level. The top of the oriel and the eaves beneath the gable are decorated with square carved bosses. To the right is a single-storey section with hipped dormer windows to the first floor, a doorway with moulded surround at the left, and mullioned and transomed windows to its right. At the far right stand a pair of original wooden gates with metal grilles, set between brick and stone piers.

The north-western flank has a projecting gabled wing at the far right with paired three-light mullioned and transomed windows and an oriel above. To the left of this is a canted bay window positioned in the re-entrant angle. The front was re-ordered in the 1950s or 1960s: the doorway to the former off-premises sales counter was adapted to provide entry to an off-licence shop, with a new square shop window inserted to the left of the door. The external ground-floor walling at either side of this window is pebble-dashed. Two dormer windows with hipped roofs stand to the first floor above. To the left again is a lower, slightly recessed service area, which formerly contained a coal cellar, larder and scullery. Ramped walling connects the pub to the rear-yard gate piers and a lavatory block with louvered vents set to the slopes of the hipped roof.

The east front features a projecting single-storey assembly room at its centre. This room formerly had an angled bay window, which was replaced at some point in the mid-20th century by a larger bowed projecting window. Single casements flank this window, with a panelled brick parapet above at first-floor level. A chimney stack with moulded shoulders occupies the centre of the first floor. Openings to both floors are original. Roofing materials across the building appear to be original, and chimneys survive to their full original height.

Interior

The principal ground-floor rooms retain their original configuration. The central public bar and the lateral gentlemen's smoking room and mixed smoking room all retain fixed bench seating to the perimeter walls, together with their moulded plaster ceilings and Lyncrusta decoration above the picture rails. Leaded windows remain to the majority of lights, though they have been lost in the Public Bar. The assembly room, overlooking the garden, has had a sizeable semi-circular bow window added to its external wall, but the moulded plaster ceiling decoration remains in place. Fire surrounds have been removed. The central service area common to all bars has been removed, and bars and bar backs to the three main bars and the hall have largely been stripped. Fragments of the remaining bar backs and panelling above the former counters indicate that service areas were modified or replaced at some point. Some first-floor rooms have been subdivided; many have numbers to the heads of their door frames, suggesting possible use as rented hotel bedrooms. The cellars retain their barrel stands, barrel drops and hoists.

The large mid-20th-century semi-circular bowed window at ground-floor level to the east of the assembly room is not of special architectural or historic interest.