The Brown Jug and attached boundary wall

The Brown Jug and Attached Boundary Wall

The Brown Jug is a former farm cottage, probably constructed in the 18th century, which has been in continuous use as a public house between 1795 and 2019. The building was extended to the rear around 1950.

The principal building is L-shaped on plan, with a small lean-to extension to the east elevation and a flat-roofed two-storey extension to the rear. There is a large beer garden to the rear of the pub with a covered timber colonnade built against the flint wall along the east boundary of the site.

The building is constructed of knapped flint with stock brick quoins and window dressings. The roofs are pitched and covered with clay tiles, except for the rear flat-roofed extension and the lean-to, which have corrugated sheet metal roofs.

The Brown Jug is a two-storey vernacular building. The front (south) elevation has pitched, tiled roofs on each wing of the L-shaped plan. Brick chimney stacks with corbelling and tall clay chimney pots mark the ends of the front roof, with brick chimney breasts continuing down the gable ends to ground floor level. The fenestration is symmetrical, with four 20th-century leaded casement windows: two to the ground floor with brick segmental arches and two to the first floor with timber lintels continuous with the brick dentil course below the eaves. A third, centrally positioned first-floor window has been blocked up and rendered, and is partially obscured by a rectangular panel bearing the name of the pub. Centrally positioned between the two ground-floor windows is a projecting, rendered porch with a moulded cornice and a flat roof. The porch incorporates a single timber door with nine glazed panes in the upper half and a Grosvenor-style lantern hanging above the door on a metal bracket, added in the 20th century. A large ornamental brown jug constructed from reinforced concrete and dating from the 1930s or 1940s sits on top of the porch. A traditional pub sign, probably a 20th-century replacement, bears the name of the pub and a painted image of a brown jug and hangs from a bracket mounted on the south-east corner of the building at first-floor level.

The west side elevation has no fenestration and abuts the boundary wall and single-storey garage of the neighbouring property. The rear elevation of the principal building has at lower-ground floor level a small casement window beneath a segmental brick arch providing light to the cellar and an adjacent door providing access to the cellar from the garden. The upper floors of the rear elevation have no fenestration and the flint wall is partially rendered at ground-floor level. The historic brick chimney stack to the rear gable end survives and still serves the fireplace in the rear first-floor room.

The east side elevation of the rear wing has a leaded casement window with a brick segmental arch and a door accessed by concrete steps to the ground floor, plus a casement window to the first floor. The rear, flat-roofed extension is constructed from brick. It has a leaded casement window to the ground floor on the east elevation, plus a small ground-floor casement window and two modern first-floor casement windows on the rear elevation. A brick chimney stack with a modern clay pot arises from the flat roof and serves the repositioned fireplace in the tap room on the ground floor.

The east lean-to extension has a six-over-six timber sash window to the front elevation. The façade above the window level has been reconstructed in brick and the original pitched, tiled roof replaced with a corrugated sheet metal roof with a shallower pitch. A single door to the rear elevation provides access to the beer garden.

Interior

The front door opens into a small entrance hall with the staircase ascending to the first floor and doors leading to rooms on either side. The larger front room to the right, originally the parlour or snug, has an early-20th-century tiled and wood surround fireplace with a copper hood, and retains historic floorboards, skirting and dado rail. Either side of the fireplace are built-in cupboards with glazed and panelled double doors. To the left of the entrance hall is a smaller front reception room served by the bar. This room has a 1970s brick fireplace that replaced the earlier kitchen range, a timber, panelled bar counter probably dating from the early 20th century, historic bar back shelves, and dado panelling.

In the north wing at ground-floor level is the large rear bar or tap room. This wing may have been an extension to the original farm cottage, as evidenced by the visible masonry joins to the exterior of the west wall. This wing was extended further around 1950 by the addition of a two-storey flat-roofed extension to the north elevation. This room has a timber, panelled bar counter probably dating from the early 20th century. The 1930s-style brick fireplace with a Tudor arch was repositioned as part of the 1950 extension. The walls are half-timbered with a timber plate shelf.

The lean-to extension to the east elevation originally housed the larder. A plan dated 1950 indicates that this room at one time housed the ladies' lavatory, but latterly it appears to have been used for storage. This room is only accessible via the garden by an external door to its north elevation.

A narrow corridor linking the bar and the parlour provides access to a staircase descending to the cellar, which extends across three separate rooms spanning the whole floor plan of the building, excluding the 1950 extension. The room to the east, directly under the parlour, has a door leading out to the garden via some steps and a small window providing light from the rear of the building. A fireplace with a historic, iron cooking range is situated against the east wall, and the remains of a coal chute served by the street survive to the south wall. The room to the rear of the cellar, below the rear bar, also has a brick fireplace in its original position, indicating the position of the fireplaces above prior to the 1950 extension. The external walls of the cellar are flint, mostly rendered, while the internal walls are of rendered brick and exposed lath and plaster.

The staircase, seemingly added after 1842, leads up to the first floor and has timber panelling below the handrails. On the first floor there are two bedrooms at the front of the building, both retaining historic floorboards, frame-and-panel doors, built-in cupboards, and skirting boards. The east bedroom also retains a historic brick fireplace. To the rear is a large living room, with an adjacent kitchen and bathroom in the 1950 north extension. The rear room has historic floorboards, moulded dado and picture rails, and a 1930s-style brick fireplace. Internal walls to the first floor are of lath and plaster construction.

Subsidiary Features

A flint boundary wall with brick coping extends from the east lean-to extension along Ramsgate Road to the north-east. It is attached to the lean-to extension with a brick quoin. Just to the east of the lean-to extension there is a wooden gate in the wall providing access to the beer garden, with two brick gate piers topped with pyramidal capstones.

Along the inner face of the flint boundary wall there is a covered timber colonnade running the length of the beer garden. The colonnade is formed of plain vertical posts and concave braces forming pointed arches on the open side, with wider round arches against the boundary wall. The colonnade is covered by a corrugated sheet metal roof.