The Bedford Hotel

The Bedford Hotel is a public house built around 1931 as an 'improved pub' for the brewery Watney Combe Reid & Co Ltd. It was designed by architect A W Blomfield in a neo-Georgian style with Arts and Crafts and Art Deco influences.

Construction and Materials

The building is constructed of red brick laid in Flemish bond with stone dressings. The ground floor is faced with polished grey granite and darker granite dressings. The roofs are slate.

Layout and Plan

The Bedford Hotel occupies a corner site with façades facing Bedford Hill to the west and Fernlea Road to the north. The main building has three storeys plus a cellar and attic. Public rooms are located on both ground and first floors, with a notable circular lounge (called the Shakespearean Globe Theatre) that rises through two storeys.

Originally, the ground floor rooms comprised a public bar with an entrance on Fernlea Road, and a main bar formed from what was the second public bar and private bar on the corner with its entrance on Bedford Hill, plus a saloon bar to the south. The partitions between the former private bar and saloon bar have been removed to create a single bar space. Part of the former private bar has been redesigned as kitchens and the original bar counter in this area has been replaced.

A separate entrance lobby and main stair hall, accessed from Bedford Hill, leads to the circular lounge, which was also originally entered from the saloon bar. The original ground floor circulation and access to the circular lounge has been altered, creating a passage to the rear of the lounge, though some doors and doorcases have been reused. The two-storey range to the east of the public bar and private entrance hall on Fernlea Road contains an off-sales shop (now closed) and a separate garage.

The main stairs rise from the Bedford Hill entrance to an unusually spacious suite of interlinked first-floor function rooms, served by a triangular crush hall. The original plan remains clearly evident here. On the north side of the pub, above the former public bar, are the anteroom and buffet, which in turn lead to the club room or ballroom on the Bedford Hill frontage. One of the upper level internal windows of the circular lounge has been converted to a doorway, providing access to the later 20th-century inserted gallery (which is not of special interest). The gents lavatories are now private accommodation, and the second floor kitchen is now a public function room. Upper floors remain in use as living accommodation. Secondary, private stairs rise between the public bar and off-sales.

Exterior

The Bedford Hill elevation is three storeys and attics, with six first-floor bays. The corner of the building features a gabled bay distinguished by a pedimented first-floor window, a bracketed cornice, and a swept gable. The Fernlea Road elevation is symmetrical with five first-floor bays, plus a further two-and-a-half storey, three-bay range to the east.

The ground floor is clad in polished granite. Stylised pilasters flanking the entrances have fluted capitals. Windows are timber casements, most retaining their original glazing bars, with upper leaded lights. On the Fernlea Road elevation, smaller windows denoting the lavatories flank the larger windows and entrance to the former public bar. A continuous moulded fascia runs round the building, terminating in a shaped canopy on brackets over the southern Bedford Hill entrance, which has granite linings and a terrazzo threshold. The outer doors are replaced.

First-floor windows have moulded architraves and cornices except for the gabled bay, where the central pedimented window is flanked by plain brick window openings with stone keystones. Upper floor windows are set closely below the eaves, which have moulded box cornices. Tall hipped roofs have full dormer windows—three on Bedford Hill and four on Fernlea Road. Windows throughout are timber cross casements, most with rectangular leaded lights; the gable contains a small Venetian window.

The two-storey range is more simply detailed. The former off-sales is framed by stylised pilasters and has a central doorway flanked by display windows (now boarded over) with leaded glazed overlights. First-floor windows have plain openings with stone keystones; above are flat-roofed dormer windows. All signage is later 20th or early 21st century.

Interior

The interior plan has been modified, mainly on the ground floor, but throughout there are moulded ceiling beams and cornices with foliate or Art Deco-inspired zigzag motifs which on the ground floor denote the former room divisions. Timber fixtures and fittings include doors and doorcases, windows, fitted seating, panelling, and some of the counters and bar backs. Internal windows have moulded timber frames and leaded lights; doors are panelled, and where part-glazed, the upper panels have leaded lights.

The former public bar (facing Fernlea Road and now separately managed) has a simple Art Deco-influenced fireplace within an inglenook with fixed seating to either side, angular-headed Art Deco-inspired doors to the lavatories, and a dumb waiter. The bar has been reduced in length; the original bar back is formed of three arches, the central arch leading to the service passage; mirrors are replaced.

The main bar (formerly the private bar and saloon bar) has foliate plaster cornices and an inglenook fireplace in the former saloon (the mantelpiece replaced) with flanking arched alcoves and the soffit enriched with decorative plasterwork friezes. The later 20th and 21st-century bar, servery, raised floor, and fixtures and fittings are not of special interest and are excluded from the listing.

The entrance lobby on Bedford Hill has an inner screen with two pairs of doors, of which the left-hand pair has the original panelled and glazed doors beneath a single segmental glazed overlight, and has terrazzo flooring. The hall has a bolection moulded fireplace surround, present by 1934. Separated by a partition (probably also an early alteration), a curved masonry stair with an Art Deco-inspired wrought iron balustrade and a terrazzo floor with chequerwork edging provides the main access to the first-floor function rooms; the decorative scheme, in buff and green, continues to the stair landing, which also has moulded doorcases and window architraves.

The lounge (Shakespearean Globe Theatre) is in the form of a double-height drum rotunda beneath a central lantern above a radial, coloured glass top-light. It is lit by an arcade of windows on two levels—round-headed at upper level; on the first floor these back onto the former crush bar and landing. The external windows have been blocked or boarded in; internal windows and the upper level door have leaded glazing and margin lights. Between the tiers of windows are richly decorated plaster panels depicting flowers and plants; the floor has terrazzo margins. The later 20th and 21st-century staging, balcony, balustrade, and steps are not of special interest and are excluded from the listing.

The ballroom, anteroom, and buffet have similar enriched foliate and zigzag plaster cornices, whereas the crush hall has the simpler Art Deco-inspired zigzag and wave moulded cornice seen on the ground floor lobby. The ballroom has three-quarter height oak panelling and a fireplace with a timber surround and mirrored overmantel. The anteroom also has three-quarter height panelling and richly moulded panelled doors and doorcases; the crush hall has dado panelling; the servery in the buffet is in the position of the original counter; the ballroom, buffet, anteroom, and crush bar have maple flooring. Some first-floor doors have vertical moulded panels, some have small, glazed lozenge lights.

The main interest resides on the ground and first floors. Above the first floor, the upper floors are functionally equipped with standardised panelled doors and fittings. The secondary, service staircase (from Fernlea Road) also has a terrazzo floor.