The Stag's Head public house, Hoxton

The Stag's Head is a public house built in 1935-1936 to designs by A E Sewell for Truman's Brewery. It occupies a corner plot at the junction of Orsman Road, formerly Canal Road, and Halcomb Street, formerly William Street, just south of the Hoxton stretch of the Grand Union and Regent's Canal and just west of Kingsland Road.

The building is constructed of red brick laid in Flemish bond, with yellow stock brick to the rear and stone dressings. The mansard roof is covered in slate. The ground floor is clad in cream faience, now overpainted, with mottled green tilework.

The building rises two storeys with an attic and cellar. Originally the ground floor comprised a public bar with an adjoining games room on the west side, and on the east side, accessed from Orsman Road, a saloon bar and saloon dining room. The bars, now opened up by the removal of partitions, are separated at the north end by a narrow off sales compartment. A central servery contains a small office. Adjoining to the south is a single-storey toilet block and to the east a 1970s single-storey extension. The upper floors provided the landlord's private accommodation, including a kitchen on the first floor which served food to the saloon bar area via a dumb-waiter. Other rooms on this storey include a sitting room, two bedrooms, and a bathroom and water closet, while the second or attic floor contains three further bedrooms. These upper-floor areas have separate access via the service yard and a doorway on the rear, south, elevation.

The exterior elevations are broadly symmetrical and designed in a Neo-Georgian style with a mansard roof behind a stone-capped parapet. Pairs of flat-roofed dormers appear on each elevation. The north elevation to Orsman Road is of four bays, each bay on the upper storey containing a six-over-six timber sash window with a stone sill and soldier course lintel. The east end of the parapet has an arched opening giving on to an original cast-iron hopper. The ground floor has cream-coloured faience cladding, now painted red, and mottled-green dado tiling. Windows are of plate glass in timber frames with hopper lights, now painted black. There are two entrances, to the saloon bar and off sales compartment respectively, with single doors with margin glazing. Above the fenestration, signage in relief reads 'LONDON TRUMAN'S BURTON' and there is a swan-necked carriage lamp bearing the pub's name. East of the original elevation is a single-storey, flat-roofed, 1970s extension containing a function room which extends along the blind eastern elevation of the building.

The west, Halcomb Street, elevation is of three bays and has the same treatment as the north elevation except for a chimney, south of the two dormers, which rises above the parapet supported by stone volutes. A door gives access to the original games room and the signage advertises Truman's Burton Bitter and London Stout. At the south end of the elevation a small bullseye window with textured glazing marks the transition to the single-storey block containing the toilets, this section being of plain red brick.

The canted corner between the two principal elevations contains the entrance to the public bar. This has double doors with upper glazed sections beneath a run of hopper windows. Above the doorway, 'No. 55' is marked out in relief from the faience tiles, denoting the pub's position on Orsman Road. Above this, at first-floor level, the corner section contains a faience panel, now painted red, with relief lettering giving the name of the pub and above this a projecting stag's head. Rising into the parapet above is a recessed section of brickwork adorned with a roundel featuring a sculpted relief depiction of Truman's distinctive black eagle emblem.

Inside, the public bar has dado-height matchboard panelling throughout. The curved bar counter serving the room continues this pattern, with a cream and brown chequered tile border with brass foot rail at its base. The bar back has a band of box-light panels with incised opal glass advertising Truman's 'BURTON BREWED BITTER' at the top of the shelving section. This continues round to the north side of the bar back, facing the off sales compartment, stating 'BURTON TRUMAN'S LONDON'. All of the original shelves are retained, with the upper portion of the bar back featuring a mirror back board common to Truman's pubs of the period.

Enclosed behind the bar back is the original, remarkably small, publican's office, and opposite this on the south are the cellar stairs, running beneath the stairs which provided access to the private upper floors. Another access point to the cellar was a hatch at the west side of the public bar, this corresponding with a set of rolling-in doors beneath a window which allowed barrels to be lowered to the cellar, having been delivered from the street. At the north-east of the public bar, dividing the room from the off sales compartment, is an original timber screen with a glazed upper section. This has been altered by an opening inserted to provide internal communication with the saloon bar.

The public bar was originally divided from a games room at its south end by a further panelled screen, the upper portion of which remains. The games room portion of the now undivided public bar retains its matchboard panelling and is served by a short counter, which forms the south portion of the public bar servery. The south wall of the games room features an original brick fireplace, inset with a terracotta relief motif of a leaping stag and, at the base, a curved brick hearth. Either side of the fireplace are original doors leading to the toilets. The gents toilet retains the original white tilework with green borders. At the room's south-east corner is a further original door leading to the beer garden and upper-floor accommodation.

The superior quality of the saloon bar is demonstrated by the three-quarter height panelling with inlaid lettering advertising the brewery's beers on offer in the 1930s including Eagle Ale and Oatmeal and Imperial Stouts. This was another common feature of Truman's pubs of the period. On the west side of the saloon is an original curved bar counter with horizontal banded sections, in the Moderne manner, and with its original chequerwork tiled border and foot rail. This originally served both saloon rooms. At the north-west corner of the saloon, the screen dividing the room from the adjacent off sales compartment remains. This is now set with a door which appears to be original, and was presumably reset from elsewhere in the pub. It was possibly one of the original doors which divided the saloon into two. Adjoining the screen is a small enclosed timber area which served as the compartment for the display window. It is annotated with the word 'showcase' on the plan of 1935. This is adjoined by a short section of fixed benching which continues to the external door.

On the east side of the saloon bar are two identical brick fireplaces, one serving each of the formerly separate spaces. These have tuck-pointing between the bricks, and bands of flat tiles inserted to forge a horizontal pattern which reflects the design of the bar counter in this section of the pub. Placed centrally within the brickwork and above the arched fireplace openings are further terracotta reliefs depicting stags and, at the base, curved brick-bordered hearths. Above both of the fireplaces are embossed Truman's branded mirrors, set within the panelling and flanked by inlaid panels of lighter coloured wood which are cut to form a stepped pattern.

At the centre of the south wall of the saloon there is a multi-paned bowed window, which would have provided the only natural light for this area of the pub. Either side of the window are original doors leading to male and female toilets. The women's lavatory on the left, originally the men's, contains original tilework. Beneath the bowed window is a section of fixed benching, more of which is found on the west side of this part of the saloon, running up to the bar counter. Behind the counter, the bar back is original, and consistent in style with that in the public bar. It includes a dumb waiter which connected with the first-floor kitchen directly above.

The off sales compartment forms a divide between the public and saloon bars. As noted above, the screens which enclosed the off sales have been inset with doorways to allow full circulation of the interior of the pub. The off sales retains its original service counter, glazed upper portions of the dividing timber screens giving borrowed light to the compartment and, as mentioned, a showcase window. The first-floor kitchen retains its dumb waiter and some original tiling. Other upstairs rooms were not inspected.

The 1970s function room runs the full length of the adjacent saloon bars, and is accessed through an inserted doorway between the saloons' fireplaces. It is not of special interest and is not included in the listing.