Hope and Anchor Public House

The Hope and Anchor Public House is a late 1930s public house, built circa 1936 for Truman’s. The architect is not known. It is constructed of brown brick in a Flemish bond pattern, with a hipped tiled roof hidden behind a parapet. The building is a three-storey corner pub in a Neo-Georgian style, designed to complement the Riverside Gardens housing estate developed nearby.

The exterior has three window bays to Macbeth Street, and a canted corner bay with a wider two-window bay return to Riverside Gardens, featuring a central chimney with a stone cornice and scrolled shoulders. The ground floor has a continuous stepped and rendered cornice above unpainted wooden windows with reeded detailing and moulded brick cills. A pair of doors lead to the canted corner and display brass signage indicating a “PUBLIC BAR”. The first and second floors have sash windows, joined by a panel between the floors and under a concrete plaque at the parapet. A single-storey range to Riverside Gardens features paired doors with “SALOON BAR” brass signage flanked by windows. A wall continues behind, concealing a covered loggia with a Doric colonnade.

The interior retains a remarkable degree of original detail and is a key element of the building’s group value. The original plan, with the Public Bar to the front and the Saloon Bar to the rear, survives. Both rooms contain their original bar counters, bar-backs and panelling in polished hardwood, with lettering advertising Truman's Ales. Other surviving features include panelled half-height screens at the entrance, a Truman’s mirror and clocks, two brick fireplaces with nautical-themed brick plaques, fitted perimeter seating, and a spittoon trough in the saloon bar with chequerwork tiling. A secondary access point leads to the upper floors, which were not inspected; the original off-sales window is no longer present.

The public house was completed in 1936 to serve the Riverside Gardens Housing Estate, which had been developed since 1929 as part of a slum clearance programme. It is listed as a particularly fine and well-preserved example of an inter-war pub in a Neo-Georgian style, intended as an integral part of the contemporary housing estate.