Rose And Crown Public House

The Rose and Crown is a public house, originally built as a hotel in 1901. It was designed by C.W.N. Johnson and is located on the corner of Old Birchills and Reedswood Close in Walsall. The building is constructed of red Flemish bond brick with painted stone and timber dressings, and has a slate roof, incorporating a cellar and attic.

The corner elevation features a canted corner with a central doorway framed by a horseshoe arch and a blocked fanlight, with foliage motifs in the spandrels and decorative brackets. A sash window above has a sill band running around the building, featuring two lower lights and six upper lights. The parapet above is of a swan's neck form with a projecting obelisk and ball finials, with the date 1901 carved into the background. The front facing Old Birchills has three bays with a central door and cambered arch, flanked by a cross-window and a projecting square bay. This bay narrows progressively with a hipped roof and diminishing window bays, culminating in a slender three-light window set within a jettied gable. Adjacent to this are two first-floor windows with stone surrounds and a gabled dormer window. The Reedswood Close front has basket-arched windows at ground level, a doorway with a similar head and panelled doors, and a single light sash window to the left and paired sashes to the right. Rectangular stones above the doorways on both streets read "ROSE AND CROWN/HOTEL."

The interior layout appears largely unaltered. Original features include a kitchen, a smoke room with fitted benches and carved ends, and a hall with tiled dado and an off-sales hatch with etched glass reading "HIGHGATE/ALES." The public bar retains fitted benches, a ceramic frieze, a fireplace with overmantel mirror, an original bar with tiled panels, and stained glass windows.

The hotel was built for the local brewer, John Lord of Long Acre Street, Walsall, near a flight of eight locks on the Walsall Junction Canal, and may have been intended to serve canal boatmen. Stables were originally located in the rear yard, which has since been separated from the main building and is under different ownership. The rear of the hotel was altered in the 1920s. It is considered a fine early 20th-century public house, retaining many original features and much of its original plan.