King Charles I, London

A compact, neo-Georgian, back-street pub rebuilt in 1937 to the designs of A W Blomfield, chief architect for Watney Combe Reid.

The interior of the King Charles originally consisted of two small bar rooms separated by a narrow off-sales compartment, as is indicated by the three doors to Northdown Street. Although the two internal partition screens have long-since been removed, the original fielded panelling remains throughout, as does the central servery with its curved and banded bar counter (though the bulky gantry above is a later addition). These original bar fittings along with the banded, part-glazed doors – of a type favoured by architect Arthur Blomfield in most of his 1930s designs - give a strong sense of the character of a typical inter-war rebuilding by one of London’s leading breweries. The King Charles went up in the same year as the French House (originally the York Minster) on Dean Street in Soho, which has a similar compact arrangement and central servery. This was also the work of the ever-busy Blomfield and it is interesting to note the subtle variety in the fit-out of these two contemporary pubs for Watney Combe Reid, completed when their inter-war pub building in London was reaching its peak. The pub was taken over by the locals who became shareholders in 2015, following the lead of the Ivy house in Nunhead, which became the first community-owned London pub acquired through this model of ownership in 2013.