Cittie Of Yorke Public House

The Cittie of Yorke Public House, located on High Holborn in Camden, was largely constructed between 1923 and 1924, likely by Ernest R Barrow, replacing an earlier wine shop previously owned by G Henekey and Co. The front facade is faced in Portland stone with leaded windows, while the side and rear elevations are of stock brick with wooden windows. The building has a tiled roof and is designed in a Neo-Tudor style.

The exterior is symmetrical, divided into two vertical units and spanning four storeys with cellars. The ground floor has entrances at either end, a central section with windows above a timber base, which has been slightly altered. Shallow bay windows rise through two storeys on the left and right, topped by a string course resting on ornamental corbels. Above this is a third storey with single mullioned windows, culminating in a parapet with two small, enriched, and shouldered gables. A large clock is mounted on an ornamental bracket between the first and second storeys.

The main entrance, on the right, leads into a wide passage with four-centred timber arches and a flagstone floor. The front bar is conventional with a high, panelled dado. The rear bar is designed as a medieval-style hall extending north-south, featuring open timberwork and extensive dark woodwork, illuminated by a clerestory and a large bay window along the east side. Below the clerestory are three arches of uneven width, leading to a series of smaller areas or ‘snugs.’ On the west side, a gallery stands on thin, fluted cast-iron columns, likely dating to the Victorian era, originally used to hold casks and barrels. Above this is a high passage gallery for accessing casks, partly supported by the roof and partly by the lower gallery, with a wrought-iron handrail. Included among the fittings is a freestanding, triangular cast-iron ornamental stove fireplace with initials 'TIK', reputedly from Gray's Inn, dating to around 1815.

According to an inscription on the fascia, a public house has existed on this site since 1430, although the current building retains few traces of its pre-twentieth-century origins.