The Festival Inn

This is a public house built in 1950–51 to designs by Frederick Gibberd, with the interior by R W Stoddart. The building stands on the west edge of the Chrisp Street Market site and was designed as part of the post-war reconstruction of the area.

The pub is constructed of yellow stock brick with panels of render, matching the materials used for the Chrisp Street Market shopping parades. Much of the ground floor is clad in quartzite tiles, though these have since been painted over. Doors are generally timber, as are the ground-floor windows, which are divided by unmoulled mullions and transoms. The upper-floor windows were originally steel but have been replaced, possibly with aluminium frames that replicate the original glazing pattern.

The building is roughly orientated north to south, with its principal elevations facing south onto Grundy Street and west onto Kerbey Street. To the east, it is attached to the terrace of shops and maisonettes that frame the west side of Chrisp Street Market. The pub's footprint is irregular, with back-to-back bar serveries running north to south, sandwiched between a long narrow saloon bar to the west and a wedge-shaped public bar to the east. The principal entrances are to the south, facing Grundy Street, where the footprint steps back from west to east. Between the entrances to the two bars was the original off-sales department.

The main block is three storeys high, with a projecting single-storey section to the west facing Kerbey Street, which wraps around to the south onto Grundy Street. This block is clad in over-painted quartzite tiles. At ground-floor level on the west elevation, a broad run of windows lights the saloon bar. The upper part is faced in yellow stock brick and features an external chimney stack at its centre. The saloon bar can be accessed from double doors on the left of this elevation as well as from double doors on the Grundy Street elevation.

The single-storey block and yellow facing bricks of the Kerbey Street elevation return onto the Grundy Street elevation to the south. The centre of this elevation is rendered, and the ground floor is also faced in quartzite tiles. As well as the entrance into the saloon bar, there are two further doorways: one at the centre of the elevation, which originally served the off-sales department (now disused with the sales window boarded over), and another on the right leading to the public bar. Over the door to the off-sales is a roundel bearing the Truman's eagle, and to the left is applied lettering spelling the name of the pub. It is not clear whether the lettering is original, but if not, it replaces near-identical signage visible in early photographs of the building.

The interior is simply arranged and finished, but much of Stoddart's original scheme remains intact. His aim was to create an interior that was cheerful and contemporary without being stark, avoiding any particular period style. Comparison with Stoddart's drawings and a photograph published in 1951 shows that the public bar, to the east, survives almost completely intact. It is long and narrow, with a counter on the west set beneath a section of lowered ceiling that contains down-lights and is supported by a single column at the north end. A decorative grille in the face of this lowered section has either been removed or covered over. Beyond the end of the bar counter, the space is lit by a domed roof light. At the far north end are entrances to toilets, and between them is a panelled recess containing a dartboard, an original feature of the pub as planned. Such darts recesses became a frequent inclusion in pubs built after the Second World War. The panelling and woodwork are original: the counter retains its front of vertical grooved timber and its bar back, the toilet doors have horizontal panels, and the remaining panelling is fielded, rising to dado height. The decorative radiator grilles are also original and are visible in early photographs. The simple brick fireplace in the east wall has been boarded over and may survive behind. Originally, the area above this fireplace featured a mural depicting the nearby docks; the mirror in this position today, bearing the Festival of Britain insignia and the date 1951, was originally positioned over one of the fireplaces in the saloon bar.

The servery is at the centre of the pub, dividing the public and saloon bar areas, as had been typical in pub planning for some time. Opening off its south end is a small off-sales department, given its own short stretch of counter and with a doorway leading from Grundy Street. Off-sales trading ceased around the 1970s, by which time alcohol could be widely purchased from other outlets such as supermarkets. The off-sales department survives with its counter, back fitting, and glazed display case to one side of the door (covered over on the exterior of the building).

On the west side of the pub, filling the single-storey block, is the saloon bar. This originally comprised two separate but connected areas—one to the north of the central chimney stack, one to the south—but both were named saloon bar on the architect's plan. Simple brick fireplaces served both saloon bar areas, and each had its own stretch of bar, now forming a long single counter on the east side of the space. The space between the bar counter and the east side of the stack was filled with a glazed partition, with an inset bench to the south, and the space on the west side of the stack was completely open, connecting the two areas. The chimney stack dividing the two bars was partially removed around the 1990s, resulting in the loss of the fireplaces and opening up the saloon more as a single large room, but the east part of the stack structure remains, marking the position of this division.

Decoratively, the saloon bar is only slightly more sophisticated than the public bar, a fact that presages the growing consistency of finish in pub bars in the post-war years and the narrowing social divide. The oak panelling is carried up to frieze (rather than dado) height, and the panelling has vertical channels and matches that on the counter-front of the public bar. There is a further section of this panelling on the saloon bar's counter-front, marking the original division between the two saloon rooms and the termination of the counters; this was originally full height but has been cut down to counter level to create a continuous bar. To either side, the two saloon bar counters survive; these have fronts of contrasting coloured timber formed into an unusual chequerwork motif. The band of brass beneath the projecting countertop seems to be a modern insertion, but on the basis of Stoddart's original drawing of the room and early photographs, it replaces a similar feature. Along the west wall is a row of structural columns, the lower parts of which are enclosed by fixed bench seating beneath the windows. This seating, and another bench in the south-east corner, is original but has been re-upholstered. At the north end of the saloon bar area, matching those of the public bar, are toilets, in this case with flush-panel doors and some early signage; the door to the ladies (to the west) is enclosed by a later internal porch serving the saloon bar door onto Kerbey Street. Radiator grilles match those in the public bar, and the grilles over the bar counter, as with the public bar, have been removed or covered.

The now private stair hall to the north of the servery has dado-height panelling of the same style as the saloon bar. This was originally used by customers (hence its decorative finish) to reach a dining room or club room on the first floor, which had a kitchen adjacent to it. An external staircase at the rear (north) of the pub, opening off the service yard, provided access to the manager's accommodation on the pub's second floor. The upper floors and back rooms were not inspected.