Former Cauliflower Hotel, Redbridge, London

Summary

Former hotel and public house, 1900, by architects Waterman and Lewis. The former stables, pot house and urinal to the rear are not of special interest and are excluded from the listing.

Description

MATERIALS: reinforced concrete frame; front elevations faced in red brick with stone and stucco dressings and polished black granite plinth. Rear elevations in brown stock brick with some red brick dressings. Slate roofs.

PLAN: the building faces south and has a roughly rectangular double-pile plan. The ground floor, originally subdivided into several rooms served by a large central L-shaped servery, has been largely opened up, with the exception of a screen to the right of the main entrance. The public staircase is located to the north-west and back stairs to the north-east. Single-storey ancillary rooms and lavatories are to the north. The first floor has been subdivided into hotel rooms; an access corridor on the north side is blocked on the north-west end. On the second floor is the kitchen and a number of former hotel rooms.

EXTERIOR: designed in a free Flemish/Jacobean style. The principal building is three storeys high plus attic, with a one-storey entrance bay to the west. Windows to the front and flank elevations are mainly mullion and transomed with moulded architraves; those to outer bays with single transoms. Tall slab chimney stacks (that to the east flank wall removed).

The principal (south) elevation is a broadly symmetrical five-bay composition. T he bays flanking the central entrance are broader and break forward slightly; these have two-storey canted bay windows and are surmounted by attics with Flemish gables. The ground floor is united by a stuccoed cornice with egg-and-dart moulding. The recessed entrance is flanked by polished pink granite columns with Composite capitals, and has a coloured mosaic floor with the name of the hotel in foliated and geometric borders. The bay windows to either side have friezes with floral relief panels. Each of the outer bays has an entrance framed by polished granite Composite pilasters, and a scrolled pediment with a ball finial. The central first-floor window is set behind an elliptical arched canopy with decorative stucco spandrels and columns matching those to the entrance below: this, and the flanking bay windows, originally had a balustraded parapet, now removed. Windows to the outer bays have a pulvinated frieze and dentil cornice and ornate pediment. The left-hand gable window has an apron with stucco relief panels of cartouches; the pediment has been removed. The right-hand gable window has a stepped scrolled surround and an apron with terracotta panels of cartouches; it too has lost its pediment. This bay is accentuated by a pavilion roof with ornate iron cresting and weather vane. The return bays have shaped gables. The front part of the roof is pitched, and the rear hipped. The rear is an irregular ensemble of single and two-storey blocks.

INTERIORS: the ground-floor bar has timber dado panelling and an enriched beamed ceiling; this is supported by square concrete pillars clad in timber panelling, and Corinthian columns with embossed decoration to the bar area. The ceiling is decorated with ribbed plasterwork (or possibly embossed paper), and moulded panels. The large L-shaped servery has a panelled timber bar counter which retains two brass water dispensing taps for diluting spirits. In the middle of the servery is an elaborate full-height timber stillion (a shelving unit) with square fluted colonettes and pilasters, with Ionic capitals to the top shelves, etched and cut glass mirrored backs, and a double-faced clock by P. Hector, Ilford, built into the cornice. At the centre of the stillion is a glazed-in publican’s office, also with etched and cut glass. A later (post-war) bell-service board is linked to bell-pushes around the room. The bar counter is edged by polychrome geometric floor tiles. To the right of the entrance is an original arched glazed timber partition with pilasters and a carved pediment and spandrels.

The former billiard room to the rear (north) of the bar was originally top-lit by two glazed lanterns, one is boarded over and the other has modern stained glass. The area to the north-west of the bar, possibly a former snug, has three-quarter height raised and fielded panelling and an elaborate Baroque-style timber chimneypiece with a columned surround, mirrored overmantel with a swept broken pediment, and marble slips. The principal stair has an open well, square fluted newels and balusters and a panelled inner-string. The ceiling has deep coving with low relief mouldings of cherubs. The back stair has plain square newels; the balustrade is boxed in.

The first floor has decorative plaster arches to the bay windows, and some dentilled and egg and dart cornices survive above suspended ceilings. There is a corridor along the north elevation with a mosaic floor. The second floor and attic have been subdivided and altered; some fireplaces and built-in cupboards survive but these areas generally lack special interest.

History

Originally named the Cauliflower Hotel, the present building replaced an earlier public house on the same site. Plans lodged with the Redbridge Record Office by Waterman and Lewis of Cullum Street, London, are dated 1897, and the building was erected by 1900, as reported in the American Architect and Building News and the Ilford Recorder.

Plans show two schemes of design for the building, one of which was adopted, though not exactly as the plans depict; the bar, for instance, was not built as planned. Plans show the first floor with a ‘Masonic room’, a robing room, drawing room and various stores.

Reasons for Listing

The former Cauliflower Hotel of 1900 is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Architectural interest: a good example of the opulent late-C19 gin palace style with an imposing street presence;
* Interior: the ground floor, although now open plan, retains extensive decorative detail and fittings. It is of particular note for the servery which, complete with bar counter, stillion and integral glazed-in publican’s office, is a lavish and remarkably intact survival, authentic examples of which are now relatively rare

External Links

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