Flying Horse Public House

The Flying Horse Public House, Oxford Street, London

This public house was built in 1892 by the architects Saville and Martin for the Baker Bros, a pair of publicans who built a substantial empire of lavish establishments across London before financial ruin. The building has been subject to later alterations including a modern pub front, but retains exceptional historical and architectural significance.

The exterior is constructed of red brick with stone banding and dressings in the Flemish Renaissance style. Its narrow frontage rises to four storeys plus a two-storey gable, behind which sits a steeply pitched slate roof. All windows are timber sashes; some feature transoms with coloured glass. The ground floor pub front and fascia are entirely modern, though the pink granite corner pilasters with decorative consoles survive. Above ground floor level, the building is largely unaltered. The first and second floors are defined by round-headed niches in the outer bays and a central canted bay window with pink granite colonettes, carved frieze and a gable feature breaking through into the third floor. The third and fourth storeys each contain three segmental-headed windows. The shaped gable to the fourth and fifth floors features a broken pediment at its apex.

The interior survives in exceptionally good condition and contains decorative elements of exceptional quality. The mahogany pilastered panelling, large fireplace with overmantle, colourful tiled frieze with swirling foliage, moulded cornice and heavily moulded ceiling with skylight are as robustly detailed and exuberant as those in the finest late 19th-century public houses. The decorative panels mounted in the panelling are particularly rare survivals. There are three back-painted mirrors with ribbons, cherubs and cornucopia by Jones and Firmin, who reintroduced this decorative technique for glass in the 1880s. Panels of encaustic tiles depicting flowering urns are by Millington, Wisdom and Co, Art Tile Painters of Shaftesbury Avenue. Three painted canvases of the Seasons, featuring plump allegorical figures carrying pheasants, grapes and flowers, are signed by Felix de Jong and Co (a fourth has been lost). The ceiling also contains painted roundels depicting Classical scenes, also by de Jong. While the bar is new, modern coloured glass has been inserted into the large octagonal skylight at the rear, and partitions have been removed to create a single open space from what were once at least two rooms, the interior remains one of the best-surviving late Victorian pub interiors in the country.

The Flying Horse was redeveloped on the site of an older pub at the same time as the large neighbouring block on the corner of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street. Although both buildings were commissioned and erected simultaneously in the Flemish Renaissance style, there was never any interconnection between them. When the Flying Horse was built, it stood a few doors down from the Oxford Street Music Hall, and the interior has something of the character of a palace of varieties. De Jong and Co, who decorated the interior, were also employed at Frank Matcham's Hackney Empire.

William Henry and Richard Baker came to London from Devon with minimal capital and gradually built a substantial empire of lavish public houses and hotels. The Flying Horse was one of their first speculations, and they ran it personally from 1892 to 1897. The adjoining building at 1a Tottenham Court Road served as their offices. Although their enterprises ended in financial ruin, in the late 1890s they controlled multiple premises across London and several hotels in Leicester Square and the West End, including the Grand Café de l'Europe, all but the latter designed by Saville and Martin, who specialised in public house design. Both brothers became very wealthy. William rose to Lieutenant-Colonel in the Honourable Artillery Company and was considered a rather dandified man, while Richard was flashier and financially more precarious. This is the best-surviving of their remaining public houses.