The Boltons

The Boltons is a substantial late-Victorian pub-cum-hotel, built between 1890 and 1892 to designs by the speculator builder-architect George Whitaker. It stands as a prominent corner building in the popular Flemish Revival style of the late 19th century.

The building is constructed of red brick with painted render and comprises five storeys with a cellar beneath. The exterior is dominated by a large octagonal turret positioned at the junction of Earl's Court Road and Brompton Road. This turret features ornamental urns, shaped gables that integrate a chimney stack to the east, and flanking dormers to the upper storey. The façade is divided by rendered string course bands. A projecting canted bay extends the south elevation across the first and second storeys. Sash windows throughout are set into rendered surrounds and capped with decorative panels featuring garlands beneath scrolled pediments. The ground floor features a series of arched plate-glass windows on panelled stall risers, divided into regular bays by broad granite pilasters. Several windows now occupy the positions of original entrances, introduced during the opening-out of the pub layout from the 1980s onwards.

The original plan followed the typical compartmentalised arrangement of the 1890s, with the upper storeys consisting of two floors of commercial hotel accommodation and a garret above the fourth floor, probably used for staff or lower-class rooms.

The ground floor has been opened out to form a single undivided bar area. The formerly central island servery was replaced with a long bar along the south-west end wall. The fielded-panel counter front here appears to date from the 1890s, suggesting it is part of the original servery, though it has been truncated and altered to fit its present position. To the north of the servery is a set of broad open stairs with cast-iron splat balusters, which originally connected the saloon bar to the first-floor function rooms and hotel accommodation. At the landing level is a pair of Arts and Crafts style stained windows with floral motifs. The recessed section adjacent to the stairs was formerly a snug off the main saloon bar.

Most features of Victorian appearance in the ground floor are later additions, introduced as part of the pub's rebranding as "Whittaker's Victorian Dining Room" around 1990. The Corinthian columns were installed in two phases: in 1990 (to the west) and 1995 (to the east). Those to the east are of hollow steel pipe with moulded resin capitals, while those to the west are thicker but probably also of steel, with arc-welding evident to their bases and capitals. Historic plans show no columns in the original scheme. The ceiling is of plasterboard, installed in the 1990s and decorated to appear as Victorian in-situ plaster, evident from the edges of 8 feet by 4 feet sheets. Ceiling roses and cornices are of fibrous plaster, also dating from the 1990s, with cornices displaying butt joints between sections, confirming they were not formed in-situ. A mirrored screen in the north-east corner may have been relocated from elsewhere; detail drawings within a 1972 application for repurposing the old off-sales area as female toilets show screens of identical pattern, though the screen is first shown in its current location on the 1995 "as proposed" plans, suggesting it was installed at that time. The engraved mirror inserts to the screen are likely later additions. The geometric tiles around the bar respect its present form and location, thus dating to 1990 or later.

The first floor principally consists of two amalgamated function rooms with wall openings allowing free circulation between them. As part of the 1990 plans, a new servery was introduced and the existing toilets in the north-east corner were replaced with a large catering kitchen, cold store and staff toilet. The function rooms have been modernised in several phases from the late 1980s onward. Only fragments of cornicing and a plaster archway with recessed panels leading to the stairs remain from the probable 1890s date.

The second, third and fourth floors, originally comprising two storeys of good commercial hotel accommodation and a garret above, retain a stronger degree of survival of historic layout and features such as fireplaces with surrounds, including several with tiles, architraves and cornices. Fire doors have been fitted to all rooms, and alterations associated with the change of use to staff accommodation, including insertion of kitchens, utility rooms, bathrooms and a shower room, have been made. The fourth floor accommodated smaller bedrooms with simpler decorative order: narrow architraves, low skirting boards and no cornices. Apart from fire separation between stairs and corridor and fire doors to all rooms, the principal area of later change on the fourth floor is restricted to the north-eastern part where modern WC, bathroom and shower room have been added.

The cellar remains largely unaltered, save for some pre-1978 concrete block walls leading to the barrel-drop and some post-1991 partitions in the north-west corner. Two historic plank doors survive within the cellar.