The Rose and Crown public house, Stoke Newington

The Rose and Crown is a public house built between 1930 and 1932 on a prominent corner site in Stoke Newington. It was designed by A E Sewell for the brewery Trumans, Hanbury and Buxton Ltd. The decorative wrought ironwork was made by the Morris Singer Company, the notable art foundry responsible for casting Sir Edwin Landseer's four monumental lions in Trafalgar Square.

The pub is constructed of red brick with stone dressings and a tiled roof. It occupies a corner plot and has a distinctive curved central façade. Originally, the ground floor was divided into five separate areas – public bar, private bar, off-sales, saloon bar and lounge and dining room – as shown on the 1930 ground floor plans. All were served by a central rectangular servery. On the west side of the Stoke Newington Church Street elevation there was a private area and staircase leading to the first floor for the landlord and staff, with the kitchen on the first floor. The bar partitions have since been removed to create a single open bar.

The Rose and Crown is Neo-Georgian in style, though its asymmetrical massing owes something to Arts and Crafts design. The main curved section is three storeys high, while the elevations facing Albion Road and Stoke Newington Church Street are two storeys with recessed attic levels. The ground floor has several entrances that historically led to the individual bars. The entrance on the north served the public bar. Adjacent to this, on the right of the curved frontage, was the entrance to the private bar. On the left (south) of the showcase window was the off-sales or outdoor department, and to the left of this, opening from Albion Road, were paired entrances to the saloon bar and the lounge and dining room.

The central curved façade is the primary focal point. The five first-floor windows are framed by ashlar quoins on the upper levels and capped by a pair of large brick chimneystacks rising to the height of the tall roof with its original plain tiling, which follows the curve of the corner. At ground floor level, the private bar – which along with the off-sales compartment occupied this corner portion – is the most detailed element of the ground-floor arrangement. It features large multi-paned windows with dimpled glass that served as a central showcase to display the brewery's beers. Two entrance vestibules are set either side of this central curved window, serving the former private bar (on the west) and the outdoor or off-sales department (on the south-east). Both entrances retain their cast-iron name plates with carved wooden surrounds. Each is flanked by a pilaster and a pair of elegant wooden Doric columns. Set between these columns, forming the upper part of the entrance ways, are panels of wrought ironwork and behind these, further wrought iron fanlight screens, all by Morris Singer Company.

The compact frontage facing Church Street, to the right of the curved central façade, contains the entrance to the public bar. The ground floor has a small entrance door off-set to the right (west), positioned beneath a projecting canopy supported by scroll brackets. The door retains its original glazing and its original brass plate bearing the name of the public bar. To the left is a large multi-paned window with decorative yellow bordering on the glass. The door and window are flanked by brick pilasters with stone dressings.

The frontage facing Albion Road is the widest elevation, formed of seven bays with an additional single-storey projection at the pub's southern end. The arrangement of the ground floor follows the pattern of that on Church Street, having multi-paned windows with decorative yellow-bordered glass divided by brick pilasters. Here these are set either side of the centrally grouped pair of entrance doors, which led to the formerly separate saloon bar and lounge and dining room. The single-storey projection at the end originally contained two doorways – that on the right leading via a passageway to the rear yard and that on the left providing entrance to a public urinal. These two doors have now been replaced by a single large window. Morris Singer Company also manufactured the highly unusual pair of metal inn signs at first-floor level, hung from wrought iron brackets on each side of the pub's central elevation. Beneath there are original glazed lamps, added around 1932.

The first floor throughout forms a piano nobile and features a symmetrically arranged assortment of sash windows, most set beneath red brick lintels with stone keystones. Further decorative treatment at the corner portion takes the form of two small sculptural relief panels depicting a rose and a crown at first-floor level, beneath the narrower and shorter sash windows at either side of this central elevation. At first-floor level on the Church Street frontage there is a large Venetian window with a swag motif set in the central tympanum. Above this is a short parapet that rises to meet the chimneystack to the left (east) side of this frontage, with a carved festoon marking this transition. This arrangement is symmetrically repeated on the pub's Albion Road side. Here six sash windows light what were formerly the club room, dining room and staff room. The windows have red brick lintels inset with keystones, the exceptions being the second and fifth windows (reading from the south), which have arched tympana containing swag motifs. Ashlar quoining capped with a decorative carved festoon terminates the first-floor elevation at the southern end of the Albion Road frontage.

The first floor is divided from the second by a stone band bearing carved letters giving the pub's name, with a cornice above. The second storey is entirely clad in stone and is approximately half the height of the first. Rectangular panels divide the short sash windows. The roofline of the second floor continues along the elevation for three bays, leaving a flat roof for the remaining section, now in use as an open terrace.

The interior of the Rose and Crown is notable as being among the most complete examples of Truman's inter-war house style. Original features include fireplaces, branded mirrors, decorative glazing and chequerwork tiling along with inlaid oak panelling and bar back fittings bearing advertisements for the brewery's 1930s beers. Integrated within the bar-back is a dumb-waiter. The bar counters are original throughout, all retaining distinctive hinged doors for maintenance access and chequer-tiled borders with brass foot rails, with original bar backs set parallel behind the counters. A particular feature of note internally is the Vitrolite panelled ceiling, which is complete in all of the public rooms. A further survival, as seen in the private bar, off-sales compartment, saloon bar and lounge and dining room, are what appear to be the original hanging light fittings, recorded in an inventory of furniture and effects of January 1935.

Although the bar divisions have been mostly removed, their glazed upper portions survive marking their positions. The original fittings and fixtures appropriate to each of the bars survive well. These include original fireplaces in the public bar, bar counter in the private bar, brass lamp to the off-sales, counter, panelling, back bar and fireplace in the saloon bar. In the lounge and dining room, the upper portion of the original partitions, doors, fireplace, counter and gaslight on a lamp fixture remain. At the south-east corner of the pub, a door marked 'restaurant' led to the first floor club room. The stairs remain but no longer lead to the first floor. The club room is now a guest suite, and the dining room is a breakfast room for guests. In both rooms there are two fireplaces with tiled surrounds. The panelling is modern but incorporates some of the carved timber panels advertising the brewery. The back stairs have simple balusters and newel posts with ball finials and a curved timber handrail attached to the wall through brass fittings. The lettering which once adorned the exterior of the curved corner is now relocated on the first floor landing wall.