Blythe Hill Tavern and attached gate piers and walls

Blythe Hill Tavern is a public house, probably built around 1866 and refurbished internally in the 1920s or 1930s. It stands on a corner plot in yellow stock brick laid in Flemish bond, with the ground-floor tiles now rendered over and a slate roof.

The building occupies a trapezoid plan with an angled frontage facing south onto Stanstead Road and a bull-nosed south-east corner wrapping around to the secondary elevation facing east onto Blythe Hill Lane. It has three storeys.

The principal south elevation is three bays wide. The central bay comprises at ground-floor level a glazed and panelled door with a pediment supported on moulded consoles and, to the upper floors, a rendered round-arched panel rising from the first floor to the second. The two outer bays have one window each per floor. The ground-floor windows are canted bays, probably dating from the 1920s or 1930s, with metal glazing bars set back from the façade. All ground-floor doors are panelled with frosted and leaded glazing to their upper halves, also probably from the 1920s and 1930s. The first-floor windows are pairs of sashes divided by moulded pilasters, with a frieze, moulded cornice and pediment above, now partially covered with lead sheeting. The second-floor windows are smaller sashes with rendered architraves and slightly pointed heads. At first-floor level there is a bracket featuring a golden cockerel for the now-missing pub sign. Five brick chimney stacks populate the perimeter of the hipped slate roof, which is obscured from street level by a brick parapet topped with a soldier course. A modern skylight is inserted into the roof's west slope and a modern flat-roofed raking dormer to its east slope. A moulded cornice and painted fascia separate the ground and first floors and wrap around the south-east corner, extending the length of the east elevation.

The south-east corner is canted at ground-floor level and bull-nosed to the first and second floors, the two upper floors clad in a rendered round-arched panel. The east elevation facing Blythe Hill Lane is four bays wide with similar fenestration and doors to the south elevation. The first and second floors have three windows each; those to the first floor are single sashes flanked by pilasters.

The rear elevation faces north over the pub garden and has sash windows to the west of the first and second floors. The ground floor has two flat-roofed extensions housing ladies' and gentlemen's toilets with modern uPVC windows. The roof forms a gable end to this elevation.

The ground floor contains three principal rooms: a public bar on the east side, a saloon bar to the west, and a large lounge bar spanning the width of the rear part of the building. The servery is T-shaped to create a bar counter in each of the three rooms. This unorthodox arrangement allows customers to cross the servery to move between the lounge and saloon bars. Two floors of accommodation above the pub are accessed by a dogleg staircase located behind the saloon bar counter, with its upper leg rising over the bar itself. The upper floors have been converted to dwellings.

The pub was completely refurbished in the 1920s or 1930s with a Brewer's Tudor treatment applied consistently across the three bar areas. All three rooms have ornamental timber ceiling beams and imitation wood panelling rising from skirting to picture rail height, featuring stanchions and moulded cornices of real timber which enclose Lincrusta-like panels embossed and painted to resemble wood.

The lounge bar has a fireplace to its west wall with a decorated metal hood. The saloon bar has a fireplace also to its west wall with a surround of blue and grey tiles and keystone painted with a sailing ship. The mirrored bar back shelves in the public and saloon bars, which are of timber, have Tudor arches beneath their lowest tier of shelves and a central double-height mirrored panel set in a round arch. The bar counters in all three rooms have plain fielded panelling and curved ends. The saloon bar counter has a later extension to the left which is slightly lower in height. In the eastern part of the lounge bar there is a carved timber screen with a balustrade separating the corner seating from the side entrance to the pub.

The toilets are located in the single-storey rear extensions and are accessed from the lounge bar. They have simple panelled doors and tiled walls.

Attached to the east elevation there is a rendered wall and gate leading to the beer garden. The gate has piers of unequal height topped with spherical finials. The wooden gate itself appears to be a later replacement but the walls and gate piers date from the pub's original construction.