Angel
The Angel697 Uxbridge Rd
Hayes
UB4 8HX
This pub is not only a grade II listed building, it is also a Three Star pub on the Campaign for Real Ale’s (CAMRA) National Inventory with an interior of outstanding national historic importance, and the description is as follows: "A neo-Georgian inter-war roadhouse on the south side of the busy Uxbridge Road leading out of Hayes. It was re-built in 1926 by architect T H Nowell Parr for Fuller’s Brewery - a picture of the previous pub hangs in the saloon. It was extended in 1937 at the rear on the right-hand side to create a function room. The former off-sales still survives in the middle of the symmetrical facade, between the two front bars. Remarkably all four original bars survive, clustered round a central servery. When the pub was built, they were all relatively small and of not dissimilar size. The little-altered interior is, no doubt, mainly due to the fact that it was run by the same licensee from 1967 to 2010. This is probably the reason why it has a little-altered interior and has been referred to as 'the pub Fuller's forgot.'
The front saloon bar accessed from the right hand door with a glazed vestibule entrance has as its key feature a large brick original fireplace (sadly painted white). This popular room retains its original quarter circle panelled counter with outward-opening cupboards – only seen in the London area they are apparently for inspecting pipework and beer engine maintenance. Sadly, canopies have been added over the counter here and elsewhere. The walls are covered in plaster with uprights regularly spaced along the dado and painted brown to look like half-timbering topped by a crenellated top rail. Some of the loose furniture must surely be inter-war.
The front public bar accessed from the front left-hand door with a glazed vestibule entrance has another original quarter-circle panelled counter with cupboards that can still be opened (the canopy above is a c.1970 addition). The original bar-back fitting has a doorway for staff in the second of four bays and the third bay has seen some change. The original fireplace remains and is mostly of cast iron, grained to imitate hardwood but it has a modern interior. The walls are covered in plaster with uprights regularly spaced along the dado and painted brown to look like half-timbering topped by a cornice of genuine wood. The original metal window openers in this room still work and are used in hot weather!
Through a double width doorway (original doors lost) leads to what was originally the Meal Room and did not have a bar counter when built. On the right is a sealed up door that has a hatch in it – beyond the wall is a passage that includes a dumb waiter, which brought down meals cooked in the first floor kitchen and they were handed through the hatch. This room also retains its original fireplace of cast iron and painted brown to look like wood but with a modern interior and the walls have more of the plaster uprights on the dado and painted brown to look like half-timbering topped by a crenellated top rail. The bar counter here looks like it was added in the 1960s. The gents' urinals date from 1926 and when built customers had to access by leaving from the rear left door and entering from the rear i.e. outside roofless gents’! The gents’ WC and ladies’ were added probably post war.
The off sales remains with its door in the centre front of the pub flanked by what were once display windows; its bar counter is intact and it shares the front left-hand bar-back fitting but is now used as a storage area. There is an attractive glazed timber screen spanning the servery between the front public bar and facing the lounge. Beyond the bar back fitting the original manager’s office is still in use today – it has a glazed door and a series of windows overlooking the bars, including a special cashier’s window through which cash was passed back to be placed in the safe which is in situ but not used as they have lost the key! Another original fitting is the fire extinguisher situated at the top of the cellar steps! In the cellar is the original hand wound hoist which is still in use today for bottling-up (taking crates of bottles from the cellar to the bar to place on shelves). The dumb waiter which connects to the cellar below and former kitchen above remains.
The rear right room, originally the luncheon room, is now the function room. When built in 1926 it was the same size as the rear left ‘meal room’ and it had no bar fittings. Then in 1936 plans were drawn to extend backwards the luncheon room by some 50%: this was flanked on two sides by a verandah (as the earlier, smaller luncheon room had been). The extent of the original 1926 building was the large pillar on the right. The room was then remodelled in c.1970 - it was extended to take in the footprint covered by the verandah: square piers are left over from the 1930s walling, presumably for structural reasons to save rebuilding the entire roof and with (it seems) the Crittall casement windows reset. The 1937 extent of the room is clearly visible by looking at the ceiling – the stage is situated in the c.1970 part. The whole room has fielded panelling to dado height and that on the rear wall could be from 1937. There is an excellent Art Deco colourful leaded glass roof-light in the 1937 part of the ceiling. The canted bar counter here was added in 1937 and also includes doors that can still be opened. The mirrored bar-back fitting also dates from 1937. There is another 1926 fireplace mostly of cast iron and painted brown to look like wood but it has a modern interior. The ceiling here (and also in the other rooms) have exposed beams (now all painted in a uniform colour) and this arrangement continues into the extended part of the function room, showing an attempt to match the existing work that would not be expected in post-war work.
On the first floor in the licensee's private quarters the original kitchen at the rear left (now the living room) still retains its fitted cupboards and the drying rail with pulleys that was used to dry table cloths etc. Also in this room is the Georgian-style built-in sideboard that contained crockery, cutlery etc. that resided in the meal room when the pub opened – it has the lead lined drawer for the storage of wine. On the first floor hall is the pianola that was originally in the public bar and they still have some scrolls. On the front left upstairs is the Masons Room, which has been used by the local lodge every Monday night since the pub opened in 1926! It was also used by the Buffaloes until the 1960s and has the Roll of Honour for ‘The Industrial Lodge No. 177’ on the wall and the regalia cupboard with both doors having the gold lettering of the founder in 1913 and the list of ’Certified Primos’. This room has a 1930s Art Deco tiled fireplace and original Bakelite plugs and switches but recently the original door with its peep hole has been replaced by a modern ‘fire door’. The room is available for meetings.
On the right hand side of the pub there was a club room when the pub was built in 1926 but it was demolished in 1937 when the luncheon room was extended.
The Listing description is as follows: "Reasons for Designation The Angel PH at Hayes, of 1926 by TH Nowell Parr with later extensions, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Architectural quality: a subtly distinguished, Arts and Crafts-influenced design by one of the leading pub architects of the early/mid-C20;
* Planning interest: the compartmental plan marks the diversification and careful separation of functions typical of the 'improved' or 'reformed' public house;
* Intactness: the building is very well preserved both within and without, with the original 1920s interior - including rare features like the off-sales compartment and manager's office - surviving exceptionally well.
History The Angel Inn once stood within the hamlet of Hayes End, which lay north-west of Hayes village alongside the Uxbridge Road. The latter formed part of the old main route from London to Oxford, and the Angel probably originated as a coaching inn. Road-widening during the early C20 - when Hayes was becoming absorbed into the outer metropolitan suburbs - removed most of the original hamlet, but the Angel survived, and was rebuilt on its original site by Fuller's brewery in 1926. The new building, designed by TH Nowell Parr, was a model of the 'improved' inter-war public house, whereby brewers sought to appeal to a more 'respectable' clientèle by providing a wider range of services including separate lounge bars and dining areas. Nowell Parr’s building was extended in 1937, with the former verandah incorporated into the luncheon room, and again c.1970, but otherwise remains much as built.
Thomas Henry Nowell Parr (1864-1933) was born in Birmingham and articled to the local firm of Dunn and Hipkiss before becoming an assistant in the Walsall Corporation Architect's Department. In 1894 he went to work for Brentford Urban District Council, for whom he designed a number of civic buildings including the public baths (1895-6) and library (1904-5). In independent practice from 1900, he is best known for his numerous west London pubs and hotels, whose quiet Arts and Crafts detailing marks a reaction against the showy opulence of the late-Victorian 'gin palace'. Examples of his work include the Old Pack Horse at Chiswick (1910), the Three Horseshoes at Southall (1914-22) and the Kent Hotel, now the Duke of Kent, at Ealing (1929).
Details Public house, 1926 by Thomas Henry Nowell Parr for Fuller’s Brewery, extended 1937 and c.1970.
MATERIALS: brown brick with clay tile roof.
PLAN: the building is roughly square on plan and occupies a corner plot where Angel Lane meets the main Uxbridge Road. The internal arrangements are little altered. The public area on the ground floor comprises five separate rooms, each with its own entrance. These will be referred to below by their original designations, as shown on the architect's drawings. At the front (north) are the saloon bar and public bar, separated by the narrow off-sales room; behind are the meal room and luncheon room, with the manager’s office and hallway between. To the south-east is a free-standing toilet block, originally roofless and entered directly from the street, but later joined to the meal room via a short corridor. On the west side is a lean-to section comprising a bottle store, entrance porch and toilets; this originally continued to the south and east as an open verandah, but the space was absorbed into the luncheon room when the latter was extended in 1937 and c.1970. A central counter serves all five public rooms. On the first floor, above the public bar, is the so-called Masons’ Room, used for many years by the local Masonic lodge; also on this level are the former kitchen, scullery and larder. The attic floor contains domestic accommodation.
EXTERIOR: the style is an Arts and Crafts-inflected neo-Georgian. The main north elevation to the Uxbridge Road is of seven bays arranged 2-3-2. Projecting brick quoins mark the corners and frame the centrepiece. The ground floor has Crittall casement windows and three round-arched doorways; that in the centre leads to the former off-sales room and is flanked by what were once display windows. (The pub sign and bracket*, carriage lamps*, fascias* and awnings* are not original, and are not of special interest.) The first-floor windows, above a plain painted storey-band, are six-over-six-pane timber sashes with flat-arched keystone surrounds; over the central doorway is a small semicircular balcony. The steep-pitched hipped roof has boarded and sprocketed eaves, and contains two pedimented dormers flanking a square central stack. The more informal east elevation to Angel Lane is dominated by two broad chimney-breasts, which rise through the eaves into tall battered stacks. On the west side, facing the yard, is a hip-roofed lean-to containing bottle store and toilets; its right-hand portion, originally an open verandah, was rebuilt c.1970 as a flat-roofed extension* (not of special interest).
INTERIORS: apart from the extensions to the luncheon room, these are little altered. Common features include beamed ceilings – typical of Nowell Parr’s interiors – and dado panelling formed of close-set vertical studs with a crenellated top rail. The SALOON BAR retains its original glazed entrance lobby, curved counter with panelled front, and a large brick fireplace, now painted, with tilework decoration. The counter is notable in having outward-opening hatches to give access to the pipes and beer engines, a feature apparently peculiar to pubs in the London area. To the east is the OFF-SALES ROOM, a narrow compartment accessible only from the street and from behind the bar. Beyond is the PUBLIC BAR, again with its glazed entrance lobby, curved counter with hinged doors (the canopy* above is an insertion of c.1970 and is not of special interest), and fire surround – the latter of cast iron grained to imitate hardwood. The MEAL ROOM to the south has a blocked fireplace and a service hatch, also blocked, in the west wall. (The bar counter* and canopy* here are insertions of c.1970 and are not of special interest). The LUNCHEON ROOM, as noted above, has been extended southwards on two occasions to create a large function area. It has fielded dado panelling (partly original), a grained cast-iron fireplace (ditto), a canted bar counter with hinged doors, and an Art Deco coloured glass skylight (both probably of 1937).
The central SERVERY retains much of its original bar-back (including a mirrored section of 1937 facing the luncheon room), under-bar shelving and a glazed timber screen between the saloon bar and the off-sales room. The MANAGER’S OFFICE has a glazed door and a series of windows overlooking the bars, including a special cashier’s window through which cash was passed back to be placed in the safe (also still in situ). The rear CORRIDOR is connected via steps and a dumb-waiter with the cellar below and the former kitchen above.
The brick-lined CELLAR dates partly from the earlier building, and contains two beer-drops and a bottle hoist (respectively, for lowering barrels down from the street and raising crates of bottles up to the servery). The main stair, with stick balusters and square newels, leads up to the upper floors. The rooms here have simple four-panel doors in moulded timber surrounds. The MASONS’ ROOM, on the first floor, has an Art Deco ceramic fireplace as well as various items of furniture (moveable and hence not included in the listing) relating to its former Masonic use. The former KITCHEN has built-in cupboards, a drying hoist and a large sideboard. Some of the attic BEDROOMS contain fireplaces with decorative iron surrounds.
* Pursuant to s.1 (5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (‘the Act’) it is declared that the abovementioned features (the pub sign and bracket, carriage lamps, fascias and awnings on the main elevation, the canopy in the public bar, the canopy and counter in the meal room and the c.1970 extension to the luncheon room) are not of special architectural or historic interest."
The WhatPub link is here: WhatPub/Angel
The Pub Heritage Group link is here: PHG/Angel
The Angel featured on the Down the Uxbridge Road: Daytime Crawl of West Middlesex on 14 June 2014.