The Kings Head Public House

635-1/0/10155 ESSEX ROAD 09-AUG-04 59 The King's Head Public House

II Pub with accommodation above. Mid-C18 with C19 frontage and C20 alterations. Rendered brick with tiled M-profile roof behind parapet. EXTERIOR: Essex Road elevation has 3-window bays with C19 sashes with horns and moulded architraves, those to first floor under rounded arch surrounds with drip moulds, those to second floor shorter with advanced cills on brackets. Ground floor pub front with replaced windows and canted corner entrance. Return elevation mostly blind. M-profile roof, now behind a rendered parapet and gable ends, is only external evidence of C18 origins. INTERIOR: Ground floor opened up and extended to the rear, with Edwardian fireplace in the front section and contemporary tiling to the bar, otherwise mostly later-C20. Of particular note is the full-height staircase from first floor to garret with distinctive 'Chinese Chippendale' balusters, a kind of latticework arrangement made popular in England from the mid-C18 by the furniture maker Thomas Chippendale, and altogether a rare survival. Other C18 interior survival includes the full width first floor front room with cornice and later fireplaces at each end, C18 fireplace in the first floor front room, and several doors at the garret floor. The plan form, while not fully intact, remains mostly readable. The roof structure was not visible internally, although it is believed to survive. HISTORY: The 1746 Rocque map shows a building on this corner (easily identifiable for its relationship to the Church of St. Mary), and the map of 1817 indicates the whole row more fully developed. The rate book evidence, while not conclusive, suggests that a building was on this site in the 1730s, with an improvement made in the mid-1750s; this mid-C18 date seems likely to be the earliest date of the present building, judging from the surviving interior fabric. Further significant changes in the rates paid occur between 1825-30 and 1835-46, indicating further additions, perhaps those to the rear. In 1846, the rate paper was J. Cox and Hanbury, which confirm the C19 brewery associations.

Group value with other listed buildings on Essex Road that are listed at high grades for the early C17 and C18 cores that later fronts belie.

The mid-C18 fabric in this building is such that it has special interest, despite C19 and C20 alterations that are not particularly of interest, most notably is the first floor to attic 'Chippendale' style staircase for which the building enjoys considerable special interest in a national context.