The Beehive Public House

The Beehive Public House

A public house built in 1927 on Stoneleigh Road, replacing an earlier Victorian establishment that had occupied the site since at least the late 1870s. The architect and brewery are unknown.

The building exemplifies the 'Brewers Tudor' style, a popular aesthetic for pubs throughout the 1920s and 1930s that drew on romantic notions of 'Merrie England' and was applied to public houses across England. It is two storeys with an attic. The front elevation to Stoneleigh Road features half-timbering on the first floor, a large central gable, and a dormer to the east. A tall red-brick chimney stack with exposed diaper brickwork pierces the tile roof to the west. Windows throughout are square-headed timber casements; those on the ground floor have dimple-glass lights. The ground floor has a tiled front, now overpainted. Doors are fitted with multi-paned lights above and stained glass signs. A metal bracket adjacent to the pub sign is dated 1927. The rear elevation is unusual, with the saloon bar extended as a single storey towards the beer garden, featuring a battlemented brick balustrade to a terrace (probably private, accessed by an external metal stair) above French windows and a tower-like projection containing toilets.

The plan from west to east comprises a public bar, an off-licence (no longer in use), a lounge bar (originally partitioned from a single-storey luncheon room facing the rear garden), and a panelled passage connecting the front to a single-storey function room known as the Self Service Room at the east rear.

The interior is remarkable for the extensive survival of original features. All rooms retain their original Tudor-style small-square panelling to picture-rail height. This is notably an imitation wooden panelling with an applied textured surface on a plywood base, designed to replicate a Tudor effect without the expense of solid wood. All rooms feature lead-paned windows. Vernacular-style brick chimney pieces survive throughout; that in the Luncheon Room has herringbone brickwork and a brass hood decorated with a Tudor rose. The public bar retains its original L-shaped panelled counter, mirrored bar back, three original benches, and two cased-in dartboards. The off-licence contains a small serving counter. The lounge bar and luncheon room preserve their original brass light fittings, panelled bar counter, most of the original glazed bar back, imitation beams, and the glazed upper portion of the sliding screen separating the saloon from the luncheon room. The stained glass skylight is probably of later date. The doors to the 'Public Bar', 'Off-Licence', 'Saloon & Lounge', 'Luncheon Room', and 'Self Service Room' all bear original stained glass signs. A very rare feature is that all doors appear to have been numbered, with several brass numbers still surviving. Numbering of individual rooms within pubs was standard practice for Customs & Excise control purposes until the 1960s, but this is the only known example of numbering for each door. The glazed office behind the public bar is another rare survival.

The building represents the inter-war 'improved' or 'reformed' pub movement, which emerged from a desire to reduce drunkenness associated with conventional Victorian and Edwardian public houses. Licensing magistrates and breweries collaborated to improve facilities and the reputation of the building type. These improved pubs were generally more spacious than their predecessors, often featuring restaurant facilities, function rooms, and gardens. They deliberately appealed to families and to a mixed range of incomes and classes. Central, island serveries with counters opening onto multiple bar areas facilitated the monitoring of customers and efficient staff deployment. Many new pubs were built to accompany suburban development around cities, following a magistrates' policy of 'fewer and better'. A licence for a new establishment might be granted in exchange for the surrender of one or more licences for smaller urban premises. Approximately 1,000 new pubs were built or rebuilt in the 1920s, the vast majority on 'improved' lines, and almost 2,000 were constructed between 1935 and 1939. Neo-Tudor and Neo-Georgian were the favoured styles, though others began to appear towards the end of the period.

According to local tradition, a public house called the Beehive has stood on this block, off Tottenham High Road on the north side of Stoneleigh Road (until the mid-20th century known as Balthazar Road), since the late 1870s. It first appears in the 1881 census, when a Mr Evans lived there with his wife and eight children; the address is recorded as 'Stoneley South' (Stoneleigh Road then joined Balthazar Road at its junction with the High Road). The property appears on the 1894 Ordnance Survey map. The present building dates from 1927, as confirmed by the date on the metal bracket adjoining the pub sign, and first appears in its current footprint on the 1936 OS map. At this date, the pub was extended to the north and east, with enlargement of the saloon bar, creation of the beer garden, and addition of the 'Self Service Room'. The building was originally flanked to the east by a row of four houses extending to Circular Road, which ran north-south slightly further east of the current north-south section of Stoneleigh Road. These buildings were presumably demolished following damage from a parachute mine that fell in September 1940, destroying much of the area immediately south and east of the pub and necessitating a new post-war road layout. The remains of the chimney of the adjoining house are visible behind post-war garages.