Theatre Royal And Former Garrick'S Head Public House

Theatre Royal and Former Garrick's Head Public House

This is a complex building combining a late Baroque house of circa 1720 with a theatre of 1805 and extensive later modifications. It stands on St John's Place, with frontages to St John's Close, Saw Close, and Beauford Square.

The original house was built around 1720 by Thomas Greenway as part of his group of four houses in the Sawclose. It subsequently became the Garrick's Head Tavern and was the long-time residence of Beau Nash before he moved to the neighbouring house at 9 St John's Close. The Theatre Royal was constructed to the rear, with the first stone laid in December 1804 and opening on 12 October 1805. The theatre was designed by George Dance the Younger and supervised by John Palmer, who was the theatre's patentee as an MP, rather than Palmer the city architect, though Palmer the architect was probably involved in realising Dance's scheme. The building is constructed in limestone ashlar with slate roofs.

The 1720 house comprises three storeys over a basement with a hipped roof concealed by a part-balustraded parapet. The St John's Close front has five bays and the Saw Close front has six bays. Heavy continuous modillion cornices with pulvinated friezes are set at first and second floor levels on each front, with channelled quoins to the angles. Windows are set in bolection-moulded surrounds projecting forward from the wall plane, with individual entablatures and panelled aprons: nine-over-nine pane sashes to the main floors and six-over-six to the attic, all with thick bars. The ground floor of the south front retains two window bays to the west of the central entrance; those to the east have been replaced with twentieth-century openings now leading to a basement restaurant. The central entrance has a six-panel door with a three-pane transom light on three steps, with a slab hood carried on heavy carved consoles. The hood supports a shaped pedestal bearing a bust of David Garrick by Lucius Gahagan, dating to 1831. A westward continuation of three bays adjoins the 1720 house's south front; this is later eighteenth-century in date and features an arched door, six-over-six pane sashes to all windows, cornices at each floor level, and raised plat surrounds to sill bands, with three flat-roofed dormers to the attic. The east front is similarly treated to the south front but originally included a balustrade to the parapet, which was replaced in the twentieth century. The ground floor is now much altered: Phipps's theatre frontispiece of the 1860s has replaced four of the six bays with a round-arched foyer, whose three openings are carried on pairs of columns with Gothic foliate capitals and billet moulding to the arches; circles appear within the spandrels. A balustrade tops this frontage, centred by an arched panel bearing relief of the royal arms and the legend "NEW THEATRE ROYAL". The remainder of the 1720 ground floor front is largely concealed by signs.

Dance's Beauford Square front, which originally served as the main entrance to the theatre before the addition of the Saw Close foyer in the 1860s, differs markedly from the earlier elevations. A five-bay, three-storey central block rises from a broader ground floor podium running across the full width of the square. Giant order pilasters carry an entablature with a frieze of garlands above the windows, and masks depicting the Comic and Tragic Muses positioned above the pilasters; a deeply projecting cornice sits above, with a shallow blocking course, and the parapet is enriched with a central achievement of the Hanoverian royal arms with lyre terminals (renewed) over the pilasters. The windows are six-over-six-pane sashes in plain reveals. Plain returns with wings set back from the base flank the central block. At first floor level, windows sit above a full-width podium above a long ground floor featuring eight recessed panels with segmental heads and segmental-headed sashes; the middle bay contains a pair of panelled doors forming the former theatre entrance, whilst the left-hand bay has been modified with an inserted door. At each end is a wider bay set back, with doors to the left and a blind panel to the right. Behind this frontage rises a high fly-tower from 1981, clad entirely in lead and designed to be as unobtrusive as possible so as not to detract from Dance's notable front.

Dance's interior was enriched with allegorical paintings by Andrea Casali from Fonthill Splendens, which were removed to Dyrham Park in 1845, where they remain. The interior was entirely destroyed by fire on 18 April 1862 and was rebuilt to designs by John Phipps in 1863, with a foyer added to the Saw Close front. The auditorium, as rebuilt in 1863 but remodelled in 1981 to recreate a more Georgian appearance, has three galleries in a horse-shoe plan, carried on eight octagonal cast iron columns with foliate capitals, set back from balcony fronts at two levels. The lowest level balcony front is panelled, while the upper two levels feature gilded interlace. Balconies stop to boxes on two levels at the proscenium, with an elliptical head to a deep coved surround. The flat ceiling has a circular painted panel with a raised plaster edge and a large central decorative ventilator grille with a chandelier; deep arched recesses flank either side. The back-stage accommodation is warren-like in arrangement. The interior of the 1720 house has been much altered and is partially filled with staircases serving the theatre. The decorative scheme of the rebuilt interior is based on Shakespeare's plays.

Further alterations took place in 1902, when new entrances and a stair to the upper circle were installed; Frank Verity has been suggested as the architect responsible. The theatre subsequently experienced a period of decline but was fully restored in 1981–1982 by the architects Dowton & Hurst, with interior designer Carl Toms, and job architect Donald Armstrong. The Ustinov Studio was added to the rear in 1997 by the Tektus practice.