Bars (Drinking establishments) -- England; England -- Social life and customs; Hotels -- England; Taverns (Inns) -- England
It is not at all certain that the classification of compartments such as
saloon bar, private bar, public bar, tap-room, bar parlour, and so on, is
not out of harmony with modern requirements. No doubt this division has
its conveniences, in the same way that the three classes of compartments,
which some railway companies still keep up is found on the whole of
benefit. But, to take the café again as an illustration, there appears to
be no necessity there for such rigid distinctions, and many of the greater
railway companies have found no ill results from the total elimination of
at least second class. Some of the new tube railways have only one class,
and if one form of public convenience is found to answer without class
distinction, why not another?
Some of the new inns which have architectural character have been
disfigured by flaring advertisements. The licensed trade should know
whether publicity of this kind given to particular brands of ale and
spirits, on the whole contributes to the good of the house on which the
announcements are displayed; but there can be little doubt that one result
is to vulgarize the building. In cases where the landlord of the property
sets his face against advertising of this kind, the inn seems by contrast
to proclaim its respectability and on that account must attract some
custom, at all events. A very good building, as yet not spoilt by
advertisements, is the _Bell_, on the high road between the _Wake Arms_
and Epping, and another is the _White Horse_, Stetchworth, Newmarket,
which Mr. C. F. A. Voysey designed for Lord Ellesmere. The _Wheatsheaf_,
Loughton, is a new inn designed by Mr. Horace White, which is as yet free
from objectionable signboards, and is a very good type of building for the
smaller country public. There are also various good inns designed by Mr.
P. Morley Horder, in Gloucestershire, and _The George and Dragon_,
Castleton, erected some sixteen years ago, is a licensed house of
excellent design, by Mr. W. Edgar Wood.
For a model wayside inn of the smaller class, where the internal treatment
shows good taste with the utmost simplicity commend us to the _White
Hart_ at West Wickham. It replaces a very ancient wooden house which had
proved past repair, and is probably unique amongst modern inns in that it
is designed for the convenient drawing of all the malt liquors direct from
the wood. Another more ambitious house by the same architects (Messrs.
Berney & Son) at Elmers End, with an elaborate half-timbered front,
recalling Black Forest architecture, has anticipated the requirements of
the Children’s Act. The well-proportioned tea room is approached by a
colonnade at the side of the building and isolated from the bars.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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