The Walters Arms

The Walters Arms is a public house dating from circa 1865, likely designed by Robert Kerr, and located on Bearwood Road, Sindlesham. It is built of red brick with blue brick and ashlar dressings, topped with a fishscale slate roof. The building is in a Jacobean style and rises two storeys with an attic. The road-facing front has three bays. A projecting, gabled, single-storey porch is positioned to the left of centre with buttresses. To the right is a canted, single-storey bay with a hipped roof, and a projecting gabled wing is located on the left. This wing has mullioned windows of three lights to the ground floor, two lights to the first floor, and a single light in the attic. The other two first-floor windows are of two lights. The window at the right has a gablet above with an ashlar-surrounded trefoil. The red brick walling features decorative lattice patterns of diapering, and there are lavish ashlar dressings to the windows, gables, and porch. The right-hand reveal is near-symmetrical on the left with three bays. The central sunken bay has two-light windows on both floors. Projecting at either side of it, but not to the same point, are gabled wings with three-light windows at ground floor level, reducing to two lights at first floor level and single lights to the attic. Stone kneelers and coping are present on the gables. A recessed, single-storey service wing, potentially of later 19th century date and subsequently altered, extends to the right. The interior has not been inspected. This building forms a group with Bearwood College (Grade II*) and the Main Lodge to Bearwood (Grade II), creating a good ensemble of related buildings. It represents a good example of a mid-Victorian estate public house in the Jacobean style that contributes significantly to the designed appearance of the village. The village was built by John Walter III, proprietor of 'The Times', for whom Bearwood House was built by Robert Kerr. Externally, the building remains in fine original condition.