Railway Hotel Including Sign In Front And Former Off-Sales Building To West

The Railway Hotel

A public house with attached off-sales building, designed in 1931 by A.E. Sewell for Truman Hanbury Buxton brewers. This is a picturesque half-timbered roadhouse, exemplifying the interwar conception of wayside hospitality designed for motor car traffic, yet expressed in a highly romanticised medieval idiom.

The building has a rectangular plan with stepped extensions to the rear, linked to the separate off-sales building by an arched passage. It is constructed of half-timbering with brick-faced ground floor and rear elevations, stone quoins, and a tiled roof.

The main front comprises three storeys with two gables, the right-hand part projecting with jettied upper floors. A central four-centred arch frames the main doorway, which has fielded panels and grilles to the centre, with upper lights flanking a monogram panel reading TBH for the brewery. Ground floor bay windows project to the front. Moulded stone corbels at the corners support carved figures: the left shows a man with grapes in his hair holding a bunch in his hands; the right depicts an old woman with hops in her hair and arms. A sun-dial on the north-east corner is inscribed TRUMANS. A six-light bay window lights the first floor of the left-hand gable. Above the main entrance, a three-light window is set over three panels of heraldic plasterwork, with a helmet in the central panel above the date 1931. Three tall brick chimney stacks with decorative brickwork rise above the roof ridge.

The north-east side elevation features a large chimneystack with diapered brickwork and a projecting entrance porch beyond. The stepped rear elevation displays half-timbered projecting gables to the right and stepped gables to the centre, with two lesser chimneystacks.

The pub is connected to the off-sales building by a tiled archway carried on timber uprights, inscribed THE RAILWAY HOTEL within. The off-sales building, now used as a separate shop, is a deep rectangular structure with a gable end to the street above half-timbered upper floors. The ground floor has a medieval-style shopfront with a four-light shop window and a fielded door serving the upper floors to the right. The upper floors feature irregular fenestration with a projecting gable and barge boards. An angled doorway has decorative spandrels above with bird and foliage ornament. The courtyard-facing elevation has a shop window to the ground floor with sun and moon decoration to the spandrels, and four-light windows to the upper floors with a strapwork cartouche bearing the brewery monogram THB.

The interior ground floor retains many original fittings, including four-centred arched fireplaces with stone surrounds at each end; fielded oak panelling to two-thirds height of the walls and to the front of the bar counter; a canopy to the bar counter; behind-bar shelves with four-centred arch recesses; a chequered tile floor with wrought iron foot-rest to the former lounge bar on the left; and heavy ceiling beams. A painting signed E. Court above the fireplace in the former lounge bar depicts the original appearance of the pub. The upper floors are thought to include a former Masonic lodge and luncheon room with a hammerbeam roof, situated over the lounge bar.

A pub sign in the form of a gibbet reaches over the pavement.

The building is located opposite Edgware parish church. Plans dated October 1929 were approved in November 1929. A.E. Sewell was Truman's in-house architect. The large car park to the rear reflects the building's design for motor car-borne trade. This is among the best examples of a picturesque historicist roadhouse in the country.