One of Britain's Real Heritage Pubs on CAMRA's National Inventory of Pub Interiors of Outstanding Historic Interest

A shadow of its original Victorian self, and now as much a cheap B&B as a pub, the reason to visit is the tile and mirror decoration. [NB Actually it has much improved of late, now serving real ale, and is very welcoming.]

The right-hand entrance is the best place to start. Late Victorian ironwork bearing the name of the pub fills the head of the arch to a small lobby. This has a mosaic floor and full-height tiling and a mirror on the right-hand side. The tall bluish and beige panels have trails of what are perhaps meant to be stylised pomegranates. The contractor who put all this together used the opportunity for a little self-promotion, signing the mirror 'J. Higgs, Builder and Fitter Upper Park Place NW'. Mr Higgs continued his scheme inside with more tall 'pomegranate' panels and plain mirrors down the walls of a large, long room that stretches out behind.

At the rear, in a shallow alcove, the decoration changes to stylised flowers set against a plain, brown tiled ground. On the left-hand side of the pub is a very different tile scheme with the main motif being blue and off-white panels of swirling Arabesque foliage and pairs of birds, just like those at the Ten Bells, Spitalfields, E1 which are known to have been made by that prolific supplier of pub tiling, W. B. Simpson & Sons. The bar counter is Victorian but otherwise the pub has been opened up and modernised. It still operates as a pub-cum-hotel.

The Regional Inventory descriptions in these notes are extracts from the following book
London Heritage Pubs: An Inside Story

The Chippenham featured on the Daytime Crawl of NW London and Maida Vale in October 2006, and the Viva Victorian: Evening Crawl of Maida Vale and Maida Hill in December 2012.

br clear=all>