The Romping Cat

The Romping Cat is a public house built around 1900, featuring red brick with timber-framed detailing and tiled gabled roofs. This two-storey building is designed in the Vernacular Revival style and is situated on a corner site.

The exterior showcases a wide jetty at the corner, adorned with applied studs, curved braces, and polygonal cutouts within the gable, which also has bargeboards and a finial. The jetty is square above the rounded ground floor. Each side elevation has three bays, with a deep rendered plinth, a moulded brick string course slightly advanced on the first floor, and a coved eaves cornice. The first-floor windows are timber mullioned with cross frames and leaded lights arranged in a 3-2-3 pattern, featuring brick cills and moulded and chamfered reveals. The ground floor windows have rounded arches with circular tracery and coloured glass in the upper part, along with brick cills and similar reveals. The right side has an etched glass indication of 'COFFEE ROOM' and an additional bay at ground level. Entrances are located on both sides under rounded arches. The walls continue under stone coping, with the right side curving down to terminate in a brick pier topped with a pyramidal stone cap.

Inside, the layout reflects the building's corner position, featuring a central Bar Room with a diagonally arranged curved bar counter, a Coffee Room to the right, and a smaller Smoke Room to the left. The curved bar counter is panelled and flanked by fluted and curved pilasters, while the back bar has slender fluted pilasters and an exaggerated dentil course at the top. Several original interior doors have etched glass panels, and there is an off-sales hatch with a glazed overlight. The floors are tiled.

Originally known as the Sand Bank Tavern, The Romping Cat was included in the 2003 CAMRA inventory of outstanding pub interiors. It formerly had a yard at the rear with stables. This public house is noted for being a fine example of a small urban establishment from around 1900, retaining its three-room plan and original pub fittings.