The White Hart public house

The White Hart Public House

This is an inter-war public house in Grays, Essex, completed in 1938 for the London-based brewers Charrington and Co Ltd. It is believed to have been designed by local architect Edward Fincham.

The building is constructed of red brick with ashlar stone dressings, tall brick chimneys and a plain tile roof. It has a linear north-south plan with central projections to front and rear. The original internal arrangement of five public rooms has been altered to create a largely open-plan interior today.

The building is two storeys with attics. Its symmetrical front (east) elevation is formed of three sections. The central block has an advanced flat-roofed ground floor section, the roof of which forms a first-floor balcony with iron balustrading incorporating a white hart to its centre. This central block contains the original central entrance with flanking sections, each with an off-centre doorway, a tripartite window to its outer side and a single window opening to the inner side. The two outer sections have four upper floor windows, whilst the central block has five openings, the central one a doorway set back behind the balcony. All window openings have glazing bar sash frames, those to the ground floor set below rubbed brick heads. The original central entrance is now blocked but retains a multi-pane rectangular overlight. Tapered painted stone pilasters flank this entrance and define the corners of the advanced ground floor section. The south return to this area contains a further single doorway with a semi-circular head incorporating a fanlight. The doorways to the flanking blocks have stone surrounds with fanlights set below swan-necked pediments.

The rear (west) elevation faces onto a small garden area and has a projecting gabled central two-storey wing with flanking flat-roofed areas. There have been alterations and additions to this elevation, including replacement uPVC window frames and lean-to canopies over two doorways. The upper storey contains accommodation for the publican and the public house kitchen.

The interior has been modified to create an open-plan space. The southern end originally contained separate public bar areas, and the northern end contained saloon bar areas, the constituent areas thought originally to have been separated by a moveable partition. To the rear of the central part of the building is a club room reported to retain dado panelling and an original fireplace.

The unified south bar area has three-quarter height panelling and fireplaces to the south end wall and north dividing wall, the latter one blocked but retaining a timber hearth surround. The public bar area appears to have originally had two distinct major and minor compartments, now defined by a wide opening within the partition wall in the northern part of the bar area. The smaller area is still served by a separate entrance doorway in the south return wall of the advanced central section.

Between the north and south bar areas is an original entrance vestibule which led to a separate off-sales compartment, now incorporated with the bar counter. The vestibule is now opened up to create a passage linking the present north and south bar areas. The bar counter to the south bar area has a panelled front and returns at its southern end to meet the wall containing the entrance to the toilet facilities.

At the north end of the bar counter in the public bar is a curved quadrant screen now forming an extension to the bar counter, but thought to have originally been a multi-pane glazed screen matching a surviving glazed screen in a corresponding location within the saloon bar.

The bar counter and back bar structures extend through into the saloon bar areas at the north end of the building, which retain painted half-height panelling throughout. The panelled front of the bar counter is also painted, as is the blocked fireplace and its panelled surround to the partition wall adjacent to the glazed quadrant screen which extends from the bar counter. A further partition wall, presumed to have originally housed a moveable partition, now defines the major and minor compartments of the unified saloon bar area, the latter with a fireplace to the centre of the north end wall. The saloon bar is served by separate toilets to the rear, accessed via a passage from the bar area which also leads to an external door to the north end of the building.

The bar areas retain what appear to be the original bar and back bar structures, incorporating storage and display shelving and a decorative display parapet incorporating lettering referring to Charrington's brewery and its products. There is a still-operational dumb waiter facility located within the back bar, connected to an upper floor kitchen. Some internal doors, notably the half-glazed doors to the toilet facilities in the public and saloon bar areas appear to be original, as do the panelling and fireplaces in the bar areas.