Art Deco pubs were a brief phase in the history of pub architectural styles, essentially lasting only for the decade of the 1930s. However they were distinctive and eye-catching and even today look modern, and very different to most licensed houses. They were part of the improved pubs initiative to build bigger, better and fewer, and although quite a few were built in city centres most found their way into the new suburbs where there was space to create dramatic, streamlined public houses for the modern world.
This article is the first of three which look at the remaining art deco and moderne pubs in the UK, and features those in seaside towns, a favoured location for art deco pub architects. The other two posts will explore art deco pubs in city centres and those in the suburbs. In total there are probably less than 50 that are still open as pubs and while I haven’t tracked them all down yet, I think this will be a fairly thorough survey of what is left.
The city of Nottingham has an unusually large number of pubs in the art deco style and I wrote a post about them in 2021. I write about two of the more important Nottingham pubs in these articles but please see my original post for details of the others. I’ve also borrowed a few introductory paragraphs from that post.
This is a survey of pubs but I have given a quick mention to hotels and restaurants that were previously pubs. I have also included a few art deco buildings (mostly cinemas) that have been converted to pubs.
Art Deco Architecture
Art deco architecture had been developing since the early 1920s especially in the USA, but it only really took off in the UK in the early 1930s. The style favoured by British architects came not from the USA but from a simpler version developed in the Northern Europe. It began to appear in public buildings, cinemas and department stores and eventually found its way to pub design. Though it was never used widely, several pub architects across the country were brave enough to embrace the style.
Click or tap to enlarge
So what does an art deco pub look like? Most recognisable exteriors are in the streamlined moderne style, with flat roofs, curved corners, long horizontal lines and metal windows. The other main type has a less flamboyant exterior but a distinctive art deco interior with bold geometric or streamlined shapes, and aluminium or chrome details.
The Improved Pub
There was an impetus in this period, led by the government, to improve and renew public houses and this neatly coincided with the new fashion for art deco buildings. The plan was to reduce the number of pubs overall and replace them with better and bigger licensed houses offering a wider range of facilities. A few brewers objected to plans for cutting down pub numbers but many embraced the Improved Pubs initiative, and it resulted in a mini pub building boom in the inter-war years. While many were built in town and city centres, a key trend in the improved pubs boom was to build them in the suburbs to serve new housing estates. The road building programmes in this period also encouraged the brewers to locate their new pubs on dual carriageways and ring roads, often at roundabouts.
It wasn’t all new-builds, and a large number of existing pubs were rebuilt or refurbished as part of the Improved Pubs schemes. The new pubs were in a varied range of architectural styles, mostly vernacular, mock tudor or neo-Georgian but quite a few were built in the art deco or moderne style. And many pub refurbishments in this period fitted art deco interiors to an existing building.
Art Deco Pubs
The high point for art deco pubs was the 1930s and nearly all date from this decade. World War II pretty much put an end to pub building and although a few were completed in the 1940s it wasn’t until the end of building restrictions in 1954 that construction began again. By this time tastes had changed and British architects were talking about the “New Empiricism” which in practice meant that exteriors were plain and functional. With a couple of exceptions like those built by Billy Ecclestone in the 1950s (see the Never Turn Back below) and the quirk that is the 1998-built Derby Pool in New Brighton (below), pub architects had abandoned art deco.
Sadly many of the art deco pubs built in the 1930s have become supermarkets, community centres or private houses. Some have even been demolished, and the art deco interiors that were added to existing pubs have mostly disappeared. In the larger cities even London has only a handful of art deco pubs and some cities have none at all. Nottingham is an exception with at least seven, and two of these have beautifully preserved art deco interiors. Seaside towns were popular with art deco pub architects, and there are a few more in inland towns around the country.
The Pubs, Part 1: Beside the Sea
The trend for streamline moderne in architecture coincided with a boom in ocean going liners, and the launch of the SS Normandie in 1935 and the RMS Queen Mary in 1936 was huge news at the time. Both had art deco interiors and architects were inspired to incorporate features from the liners into their new pubs. The obvious place to locate them was by the sea, and a number of ports and resort towns found themselves with art deco pubs by the end of the 1930s.
The Yacht Inn, Penzance
When her father died in 1916 Hester Parnell became director of Walter Hicks & Co, brewers of St Austell in Cornwall. She continued to grow the the thriving business and has been described as “possibly the earliest example of female entrepreneurial activity in the beverage industry”. In 1934 she changed the company name to St Austell Brewery Company and in the same year acquired the brewery and pubs of Ellis & Sons of Hayle. One of their pubs was on a prime site overlooking Mounts Bay at Penzance and this was quickly identified as an ideal location for a new prestige pub. It overlooked the art deco Jubilee Pool built in 1935 and architect Colin Drewitt submitted plans for the new pub in a similar streamlined style. Hester Parnell was closely involved to the extent of selecting light fittings and colour schemes, and after some delays, the Yacht opened in 1937.
Click or tap to enlarge
The Cornish tourist trade had been growing massively, and with an eye on that the pub included letting bedrooms and a restaurant, and facilities befitting an improved pub. Hester Parnell sadly didn’t live to fully see the success of her project, and died in April 1939. Beer and pub writers Boak & Bailey were sent some fascinating photos of the Yacht in the 1950s a few years ago which show some of the the original features https://boakandbailey.com/2016/04/yacht-inn-penzance-1950s/. The wooden bar counter has horizontal banding which is typical of the moderne style and the windows are the metal banded Crittal style which featured in so many art deco buildings. It’s rare to see photos of pub interiors and customers anytime before the 2000s so these are doubly great. The windows, bar counter and other original fittings have since been replaced but its still quite pleasant to sit with a pint of Tribute or Proper Job in one of the bay windows looking out toward the Jubilee Pool and the sea beyond.
Click or tap to enlarge
Never Turn Back, Caister-on-Sea
The Never Turn Back in Caister in Norfolk was designed by Lacons Brewery architect A.W. (Billy) Ecclestone in 1954 and opened in 1957. Towards the end of the the 1930s Ecclestone became a big fan fan of art deco architecture and was possibly the most prolific pub architect to use the style (see box below) He was one of the few architects to continue designing in the moderne style after World War Two and the Never Turn Back was probably the last art deco/moderne pub to be built in the UK. Despite many of his pubs being close to the sea, this was one of the few to have a nautical theme. At the Never Turn Back he included two towers representing the wheelhouse and lookout tower of a ship. Panels on the towers and around the pub are in flint and brick in the Norfolk tradition. Inside the pub, the layout is unchanged although most of the original fittings have gone.
Click or tap to enlarge
The pub’s name comes from the 1901 Caister lifeboat tragedy when nine men were lost in an attempted rescue. At the inquest the surviving assistant coxswain’s words were converted by the press into the phrase Caister men never turn back which became a national motto of the RNLI.
The pub is right next to the beach and serves food and cask Adnams ale to holidaymakers and locals.
Ecclestone’s closed Art Deco pubs
Ecclestone created several art deco pubs for Lacons but most have now closed. There has been a long term campaign in Great Yarmouth to reopen his Iron Duke near the seafront. The work of the Friends of the Iron Duke led to its Grade II listing and it was bought by the local council who put it under the stewardship of the council-run Great Yarmouth Preservation Trust.
Sadly the relationship between the council and the Friends has been difficult, and the Trust’s plan to turn the pub into a burger bar now seems to be going ahead. Despite apparent interest from pub owners the Trust has not made public their reasons for the change of use. The Friends are opposed to the plans but have now (April 2024) decided to call it a day. They hope that the listing regulations will prevent any damage to the original interior, and also hope that at some point it will become a pub again.
Of Ecclestone’s other closed moderne pubs, the Clipper Schooner in Great Yarmouth built in 1938 is the most intact. He also had a passion for tiled panels from Carters of Poole and there is a large one on the tower of the Clipper Schooner. The pub closed several years ago and is now a guest house.
His other art deco pubs have not fared so well. The imposing 1939 built Links Hotel in Gorleston was demolished in 1999, and one of his later moderne pubs, the 1953 South Star in Yarmouth seems to have disappeared in the 1980s. The Old Commodore in Gorleston and the Gunner in Yarmouth both still stand (with new names) but have been substantially altered externally.
Ship, Skegness
Skegness on the Lincolnshire coast has long been a favoured holiday spot for people from Nottingham, and Home Brewery from the city made sure visitors could find their local beers at the Ship. It was designed by Nottingham architects Bailey and Eberlin for Home Brewery in 1934. They built no art deco pubs in their home city but the seaside seems to have encouraged architects to lose their inhibitions and the Ship is full-on streamlined moderne, designed to resemble an ocean liner. It has curved wings and Crittall metal windows throughout, and the railing on the flat roof echoes those found on the deck of a ship. It’s much modernised inside but it still has some original panelling and a few other art deco details.
Click or tap to enlarge
Seaside Hotels
Fast growing hotel group The Inn Collection, have in recent years acquired two seaside art deco hotels, the splendid Midland in Morecambe, Lancashire and the Tynemouth Castle in Tynemouth, Tyne & Wear. Both have bars open to the public so for the purposes of this guide they are also pubs!
Architectural preservation group the Twentieth Century Society have called the Midland Hotel one of the most famous and stylish new buildings of the 1930s. It was built in 1933 for the London Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) to a design by architect Oliver Hill. It’s an imposing streamline moderne building with a curved frontage overlooking Morecambe Bay. After several years of closure and neglect it was was carefully restored by development group Urban Splash and reopened in 2008. Much of the original interior has survived, including the spiral staircase with an Eric Gill painted plaster relief on the ceiling showing a sea god attended by mermaids and mermen.
Click or tap to enlarge
The Park Hotel in Tynemouth was also closed for many years before it was refurbished by the Inn Collection Group and reopened as the Tynemouth Castle in 2023. It was built in 1939 in a streamline moderne style, but unlike the Midland, it has lost most of its original art deco interior. It sits right on the seafront overlooking Longsands Beach. The large bar is quite pubby and serves local cask beers and food all day.
Click or tap to enlarge
Albert & The Lion, Blackpool
Pub group Wetherspoons have converted quite a few art deco buildings into pubs since they started back in 1979 and I’ve included a few of these in this survey. They were famous back in the day for converting cinemas into pubs and many of these were art deco. The Albert & The Lion in Blackpool though is one of the very few art deco Wetherspoons that was not once a cinema.
Click or tap to enlarge
It was originally a prestige Woolworths store, opened in 1938 and designed by Bruce Campbell Donaldson, Woolworths’ chief architect. It stands right next to the famous Blackpool Tower, facing the beach and the sea. When it was a store it had three large trading floors and two floors of restaurants above. The exterior design included bright bronzework, marble cream ‘Darwen’ glazed bricks and a clocktower with a flagpole. The store was the largest and most modern of the 2,000 Woolworth’s across the world when it opened.
Now it’s the Albert & the Lion, named after the comic monologue set in Blackpool and made famous by Stanley Holloway. It’s surprisingly small inside, taking up just part of the ground floor, but it packs in the holidaymakers all year round.
Yates, Blackpool
Blackpool has another art deco pub which closed in 2022. I’m including it here because there is a chance it may yet reopen as a pub. It’s in a good position right on the seafront near the South Pier. It suffered the dreaded grey paint makeover before it closed but that can easily be rectified. The building has been sold but the plans for it are unknown.
Derby Pool, New Brighton, Merseyside
Click or tap to enlarge
Finally, an ex pub which is now a Harvester restaurant. The Derby Pool is a bit of an oddity because it was built, not in the 1930s, or even in the 1950s like those in Great Yarmouth, but in 1998. It opened as a Whitbread Brewers Fayre pub/restaurant, built in a fairly authentic 1930s streamline moderne style complete with clock tower, rooftop railings and a tall circular part glazed tower. The name comes from the 1932 art deco outdoor swimming pool which stood on the same site until it was demolished in 1980, and this is probably what inspired the design of the pub.
Sources
Ainsworth, Paul & Michael Slaughter. East of England Real Heritage Pubs, Camra Books, 2022
Boak, Jessica and Ray Bailey. 20th Century Pub: From Beer House to Booze Bunker, Homewood Press, 2017
Cole, Emily. The Urban and Suburban Public House in Inter-War England, 1918-1939, Historic England, 2015
Green, Oliver. Art Deco, Amberley Publishing, 2018
Harwood, Elain. Art Deco Britain: Buildings of the Interwar Years, Twentieth Century Society, 2019
Holden, Paul. ‘Enterprise, adaptability, and the courage to take risks’: The Expansion of Walter Hicks & Company, 1851-1939. Brewery History, Winter 2022, Number 193
Seaton, Paul. The British Lunch Counter 1938-49 www.woolworthsmuseum.co.uk/TBarRestaurant.html