The Spotted Dog Public House

The Spotted Dog is a timber-framed building, now a public house, dating in part to the late 15th or early 16th century with subsequent phases from the late Georgian, Victorian and post-Second World War periods.

Exterior

The central range of the main frontage forms the earliest part of the building and dates to the late 15th or early 16th century. This is a timber-framed two-bay hall with an open crown post roof. Two doors with 19th-century joinery lead into the building here, and the tiled roof eaves descend right down to their architraves. A brick stack stands to the right of this range.

This early core is flanked by two-storey cross-wings, also timber-framed. The right-hand wing is contemporary with the central hall, while the left-hand wing dates from slightly later. Both have jettied, weather-boarded upper storeys with horizontal sliding sashes in the gables and rough-cast rendered ground floors. Both jetties rest on later supports: a brick return wall to the left-hand wing and iron posts to the right on the eastern return.

The left-hand cross-wing has a four-centred arched door and a large window with marginal glazing on the ground floor. The right-hand wing has just a window opening, with an entrance on the canted corner to the return. The eastern return has a late 19th-century bay window on the ground floor and more sashes on the first floor. Further along this return is an extension, weather-boarded to match the original but dating to 1968 and lacking special interest. Above it the gables of the Victorian part of the building are visible, complete with bargeboards and finials.

The western return has two Edwardian porches and a brick chimney flue, also of 19th-century or later date, as well as further sash windows. Beyond is the late Georgian addition, possibly originally a house: a stock brick range with a slate hipped roof, gauged brick arches to the sash windows and brick pilasters. The windows to the right have been altered or bricked in and the door altered too; it once had a canopy and porch.

A two-storey extension with metal casements dating to the second half of the 20th century abuts this building to the north. Alongside this are a single-storey 1980s function room and a garage. None of these three parts have special interest. By contrast, the Victorian sections, visible above ground floor level and identifiable through their stock brick elevations with red brick dressings, timber sash windows, decorative bargeboards to the gables and slate roofs, do contribute to the building's interest.

Interior

In the single room of the central hall, the roof is partly exposed. This is a crown post with lateral head braces and the timber is hand-sawn but without particular embellishment in the form of chamfers, stops or other carving. To the right, set under the tie beam, is an inserted stack with hearth, timber bressummer, iron grate and oven. To the left, the wall has a later opening in its upper part looking through to the roof trusses of the cross-wing. A serving bar and back bar along the rear of this room appear Victorian in date, as is some of the other joinery; other elements are modern. The floor is paved with York flagstones.

The left-hand cross-wing has a crown post roof with studs and braces to the walls. The ground floor ceiling is supported by Victorian iron colonettes and contains later fireplaces and panelling. The right-hand cross-wing has a tie beam and moulded wall plate but no other elements of the roof are visible. There is a simple late Georgian timber fireplace in the upper room in this wing, some plain partitioning of the same date in another room, and a sash window in a third room which may indicate the old end wall of the range. On the ground floor the principal beams in the ceiling are moulded and there are various items of panelling and other joinery including fireplaces dating to no later than the 19th century.

Inside the later sections to the rear, both late Georgian and Victorian, there are no fireplaces, bar counters or staircases of historic interest as the building was refurbished in the second half of the 20th century and much of the fabric dates to this period.

The interior of the Victorian section of the pub is characterised by a medley of timber-framed structures including one section that appears to be a jettied external wall of a timber-framed building, but that does not relate in its location to the late medieval parts of the building. Some of the timbers are old, others newer, and most are painted with brown paint. A photograph of 1967 shows a gap in the external wall in this area and the timbers do not appear to be present; photos from 1968 show the interior as it is now. It is likely that most of the internal fabric in this part of the pub was assembled from timbers, perhaps salvaged from elsewhere, in the refurbishment of 1968. It lacks special interest.

History

Originally a house, the Spotted Dog was later converted to a pub, possibly in the early 19th century when it appears on Clayton's map of 1821 labelled 'The Dog'. On an earlier map by Chapman and Andre of 1777, it is not given a name, despite other public houses nearby being marked, so it was presumably a private dwelling at that time. A range, which appears domestic and may have originally served as the publican's house, was added in the late Georgian period, before 1840.

In 1839 the proprietor was a William Vause whose family held the lease until 1917. Vause advertised his business to Londoners in search of resort: a 19th-century poster survives showing the building and boasting of its 'spacious dining room and billiards' and 'good accommodation for cricket and other field sports'. The billiards room may have been a modification of the late Georgian range; it appears on later photographs with a timber lantern on the roof, which may have lit the games room. At that time the Spotted Dog overlooked playing fields to the west and gardens to the north. Under the Vauses, the old pub was enlarged further, probably in the decades between 1867 and 1896 when its footprint alters on the Ordnance Survey maps.

The area around the Spotted Dog changed dramatically in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and by the outbreak of the First World War the claim on the Victorian poster that the pub was located in 'one of the most pleasant parts of Essex' was no longer true, not least because from 1888 the Spotted Dog has been in the County Borough of West Ham. Terraced houses lined nearby streets, the cricket field became the home of Clapton Football Club (the club remains there to this day) and the pub sold off some of its gardens. The pace of change accelerated in the second half of the 20th century and further additions and alterations were made to the building, including major internal refurbishment and extension in 1968, before it fell out of use at the end of the 20th century.

Interest

The Spotted Dog is of particular interest as a well-surviving, if simply constructed, late 15th or early 16th-century house comprising central hall and flanking two-storey cross-wings with weatherboarded jetties. The interior contains exposed timbers, a hearth with bressummer, other fireplaces and historic joinery including a Victorian bar and back bar. The building has particular poignancy as a rare surviving late medieval building in this area, evoking the rural character that could be enjoyed here until the middle of the 19th century, when this part of old Essex was lost to the expanding capital.