The Daylight Inn, Petts Wood

The Daylight Inn, Petts Wood

An improved public house in Neo-Tudor style designed by Sidney C Clark for Charrington's Brewery, opened in December 1935. The building was refurbished and partly extended in 1996, though the 1996 extension and alterations are not of special interest.

The structure is constructed with a ground floor of red brick in English bond and upper floors that are timber-framed with plastered infill. The windows are mainly leaded lights, the roofs are pitched and tiled, and clustered brick chimneystacks serve the building.

The plan comprises a roughly rectangular detached building of two storeys with attics and a cellar, aligned north-west to south-east. Originally it consisted of a north-east range containing public and private bars to the south-east of the hotel entrance, a north-west range comprising a saloon bar, lounge and crush hall, and a longer south-west range of five bays containing a tall single-storey ballroom with stage. Subsequently, partitions were removed between the bars, the hotel entrance and staircase were removed, the stage was taken out of the ballroom, and a 1990s extension in matching style was added along part of the north-east side.

The principal front faces north-east onto Station Square and is asymmetrical, with a projecting gable to the north-east and a large recessed section to the south-east. The north-east gable has a carved pendant and timber-framed upper floors with vertical studs, curved and ogee braces, and a band of quatrefoils. The recessed southern section comprises three bays with hipped dormers to the attics, three casement windows to the first floor, and a narrow stained glass window above the former hotel entrance. The brick ground floor has a blocked hotel entrance that was converted into a window, and further windows were replaced in the later twentieth century. A late twentieth-century single-storey timber-framed extension with verandah in matching style, featuring two gables, adjoins this front.

The north-west front is symmetrical, of four bays, with two hipped dormers above the two central first-floor casement windows, positioned above a hipped porch between mullioned and transomed windows on the ground floor. Adjoining are two full-height hipped gables with pendants, with five-light casements to the first floor and casement windows and a door to the right-hand gable.

The south-west side has a timber-framed end gable and swept-down roof over the former ballroom with two eyebrow dormers and a series of round-headed ground floor arches, one of which is blocked.

The south-east side has a timber-framed gable to the return of the principal front, with ogee braces and two quatrefoils. The ground floor has a later twentieth-century timber porch. The ballroom section has a large timber gablet and round-headed arches to the brick ground floor.

Internally, the public bar now incorporates the former private bar and hotel staircase area. It features an oak modillion cornice and the corner of the original public bar retains almost full-height grooved oak panelling with four relief plastered panels above depicting trees, fairies and woodland animals. These plastered panels are probably reset from the saloon bar, to judge by a photograph published in Architecture Illustrated in December 1940. The bar counter has grooved boards and a fascia with curved braces and is probably a more recent creation incorporating older material. A fireplace with wooden pilasters is present.

The saloon bar has a brick fireplace in baronial style with twisted brick columns and two plastered panels similar in character to those in the public bar but featuring two cherubs instead of fairies.

The former lounge has an identical brick fireplace to the saloon bar. The timber-framed walls and ceiling feature plastered shields, portcullises and Tudor roses, and a similar bar front to the public bar, also likely a more recent creation incorporating older work.

The former crush hall has a plastered ceiling roundel, plastered cornices with grapes and vine-leaf motifs, plastered wall motifs, almost full-height wall panelling, and side staircases with oak balustrades.

The former ballroom is barrel-vaulted, of five bays with plastered ribs, some diamond-shaped ceiling motifs, two circular ventilation grilles and elaborate Ionic pilasters.

A plain half-winder oak staircase behind the public bar servery provides access to the upper floors.

The boundaries of the site are marked by low brick walls dating from around 1935, interspersed with masonry blocks and stone capping, with piers at regular intervals.