Dog & Duck, London

The Dog & Duck boasts some most attractive Victorian tiling, framing two large advertising mirrors.

A small Soho pub, it was built as a hotel in 1897 to designs by the architect Francis Chambers for Cannon Brewery. The exterior has glazed brick upper floors incorporating a stone carving of the eponymous fauna (note also the delightful but sadly well-worn mosaic of the animals on the floor at the Frith Street entrance). The ground floor has polished granite pilasters and, around the base, facings of Larvikite - a dark, igneous rock that is attractive to the eye as it is speckled with crystals. These facings probably date from a 1930s makeover. The interior is also a mixture of Victorian and inter-war work – the former represented by extensive wall-tiling lining the back walls of the pub, forming the dado and framing a couple of large advertising mirrors; interestingly neither mirror promotes alcohol, rather long-vanished tobacco and mineral water products (the craftsman, S. Trenner, signed his creations). The more restrained work of around 1930 is found in the woodwork of the left-hand part, including the canted bar counter with a vertical matchboard panelled front. This was also probably the time when the pub was opened up and became its present single-space layout. Its Victorian predecessor would undoubtedly have had several divisions but it is hard to work out exactly how things were. The present servery now blocks a former outside door.