Dukes Head, East Ham

Grade II listing:- Public House. 1900. Architect unknown. Granite faced ground floor; upper floors faced in red brick with Portland stone dressings. Slate roof behind parapet. Rectangular corner site. EXTERIOR: Four bay south front to Barking Road, five-bay return to St Olave's Road, curved south-east corner with twin entrances. Ground floor has segmental-arched window openings containing modern glass. Five entrance doorways (the central one to the south front now blocked) with ovolo moulding to upper section; each opening (bar the blocked one) retains its wrought iron open screen, inscribed variously 'saloon bars', 'public bars', 'private & saloon bars'. Mosaic decoration to entrance thresholds. Stone frieze with ornamental decoration: acanthus panels over entrances, profile of the Duke of Wellington over corner entrance set between scrolls inscribed 'erected 1700 1900 rebuilt'. First floor is treated with a rhythmic succession of windows, set between banded rustication. The glazing consist of plain plate glass to the lower register, with smaller square panes above. The outermost and corner windows have blocked surrounds; set between them are pairs of mullioned oriel windows, flanking recessed balconies beneath broken pediments: cast iron cresting above the parapet. Second floor windows, comprising 6/6-pane sashes, are plainer, set within stone surrounds. Above is a heavy modillion cornice with a rendered parapet above. Four tall chimneystacks with modillion cornices crown the exterior. Rear elevation of much lesser interest. INTERIOR: the bars have been thrown together with the loss of partitions and the repositioning of the bar counter; a WC room has been inserted in the front bar as well. Otherwise, the interior retains its cast iron Corinthian columns and its coffered plaster ceiling to the front bar. Some decorative tiling remains near the left-hand (western) entrance. Part of the behind-bar shelving is in situ. The former saloon to the left-hand rear is less altered, retaining an elaborate coffered ceiling with a pair of roof lights and an open stair with turned rails, leading to a large assembly room on the first floor (not inspected, but believed to retain decorative plasterwork and pilasters to walls). HISTORY: As stated on the exterior, this is a rebuilding of an earlier inn. It dates from just after the peak of late Victorian pub building, and is highly characteristic of opulent pub design of the day. The richly treated exterior (in the so-called 'streaky bacon' manner) is an unusual variant of the Norman Shaw-inspired 'Free Renaissance' style, applied here to an Italianate-Classical architectural form. The interior retains elements of interest on the ground and first floors, despite change. The building belongs to East Ham's late Victorian commercial heyday and is a prominent landmark in a residential district.