The Crumpled Horn

The Crumpled Horn is a themed single-bar public house designed by Roy Wilson-Smith FRIBA of Wilson-Smith & Partners for Watney Mann. It opened as a Wessex Taverns house in December 1975 as part of the Eldene estate development.

The building is constructed of a brick frame with brick wall-facings, a timber roof laid with felt, and a brick chimney stack. Timber casement windows are fitted throughout, with extensive use of stained timber visible internally.

The pub is built on a sloping site with an irregular eight-sided polygonal plan. The design comprises wedge-shaped bays of increasing size radiating outwards around a central three-storey brick chimney stack, creating the shape of a nautilus shell spiralling in an anti-clockwise direction. The single bar area is arranged around a single off-centre servery and is set over four levels of varying size, each creating distinct spaces. Stairs descend from the principal entrance on the north elevation to the cellar, toilets, a hexagonal boiler room, and landlord's accommodation on the lower ground floor. The majority of the curved bar area is at ground level, arranged around the servery which has six canted sides. A short flight of steps leads to an upper ground-floor level occupying the south-western and southern bays. At the eastern end of this level, a flight of steps turning north through 60 degrees gives access to a small gallery set around the exposed central chimney, mirroring the shape of the ground-floor servery. Two levels of terraces on the east elevation are accessed from different levels within the pub and via flights of steps adjacent to the principal entrance and from the garden to the south.

The principal elevation faces north, where the change in ground level is most evident. Each bay is defined by a brick buttress, with the lower sections of walls between the buttresses battered, and the intersection marked by a single horizontal course of vertically-laid bricks. The asymmetrical roof comprises segments with pitch and size varying from bay to bay, steepening as they rise to the central bottle-shaped chimney. The eaves steepen as the building wraps around, creating the visual impression of a hat with the brim pulled down low. From the upper terrace entrance to the east, the roof line is broken by a low shallow roof segment framing the chimney stack on three sides with vertical sections clad in white weatherboarding. On all elevations the pub appears to be no more than one and a half storeys, defying its internal form.

The interior is lit by pairs of pointed bay windows set either side of the projecting brick buttresses defining the bays. Each bay window comprises two single-pane timber casements with awning windows above, varying in size as the building spirals around. The upper levels of the bar area are lit by a quadrilateral, five-pane fixed picture window overlooking the upper terrace.

The principal entrance on the north elevation leads to a small lobby, which steps up to the main bar area. To the east of the lobby, stairs with a rustic handrail lead to the lower ground floor, with doors off to the toilets, flat, and boiler room.

The single bar has a ceiling of exposed stained timber rafters with horizontal tongue-and-groove boarding between. The walling comprises unpainted reddish-brown brickwork laid in a deliberate 'ramshackle' manner, including pieces of broken brick, bricks laid back-to-front with the frog facing outwards, and a wide variety of different bond types. To the stair wall east of the servery, burnt bricks are laid in a saw-tooth arrangement to form a cill and frame for the picture window above. The north-east and west bays are partially lined with painted timber vertical boarding. The main bar features intentionally rustic pegged handrails including to the steps up to gallery level to the south west, with all timberwork around these steps being part of the original scheme. Balustrades to the raised areas are timber of traditional spindle type with later square-section insertions, painted except to the gallery. In the western bay of the ground-floor bar area, above the entrance lobby and to the east of the servery, are substantial but non-structural painted timber joists designed to give the appearance of being hand-hewn and punctuated with mortice holes as though they once carried the studs of a partition wall. The gallery overlooks the servery through brick arches, now partially blocked by television screens, with particularly evident random brickwork facing on the cylindrical chimney stack.

The bar counter survives and is relatively plain, with a deep timber countertop above a counterfront of timber panels set diagonally to create a chevron effect. Much of the counterfront is now painted off-white, though originally it would have had a natural wood finish, an appearance retained at the southern end of the counter. The shelving, storage space and work surface comprising the bar backs are comparatively plain later insertions. Adjacent to the gallery-level steps is an inclined timber panel of corresponding chevron design to the counterfront panelling, now carrying a mirror and retaining a number of hand-painted motifs. These motifs resemble the quatrefoil decorations on a panel which was once a feature within the pub and onto which was painted illustrated lines from the rhyme 'The House that Jack Built'.