The Jolly Sailor Inn

The Jolly Sailor Inn is a public house that is believed to date from 1726, coinciding with the opening of the Avon Navigation, although it has undergone mid-19th century and late-20th century alterations and additions. The building is constructed from squared and coursed rubble with ashlar dressings, topped with a single-Roman tile roof and gable end brick stacks.

The inn features a three-unit plan with 19th-century extensions to the rear on either side of a staircase tower, both under catslide roofs, and a late-20th-century extension to the east. The symmetrical south front faces the River Avon and includes a central doorway, a continuous string course above the ground-floor windows, and cruciform metal braces under the eaves. The roof is gabled, and all windows are mid-19th century plate-glass sashes with horns set in edge-moulded architraves. There are two roof dormers with late-20th-century top-opening casements and one roof-light. The doorway features a bolection-moulded architrave with a flat hood supported by brackets, leading to a part-glazed late-20th-century door. At the rear, the staircase tower has a 2-light mullion window with casements and a hipped roof.

Inside, the inn has an early 18th-century inglenook fireplace in the right-hand front room on the ground floor, and another fireplace in the left-hand front room. A historical note mentions that the wooden surround of the fireplace in the left-hand room has holes made by hot pokers, left by newly-promoted barge captains who celebrated by buying rounds of drinks. The inn is located adjacent to Saltford Lock on the River Avon.