Prince Alfred, Maida Vale

An extraordinary 1890s interior, complete with intricate fittings and a compartmentalised plan which makes this one of the best examples of a late-Victorian pub nationally.

The arrangement and fit-out of the Prince Alfred are the product of a complete remodelling of around 1898, carried out at the height of the ‘boom’ years to transform this stuccoed pub of 1863. The vast expenditure of these heady years of London pub building is much in evidence in the principal Castellain Road elevation. This is dominated by the sinuous and richly-detailed bowed window frontage, with etched and engraved glazing framed by slender wooden columns sweeping back in ogee curves, creating what must rank as one of London’s most striking pub façades. The intricate glass extends around the corner to Formosa Street, with decorative panes featuring recurring motifs of birds in foliage and draped garlands, giving a foretaste of the splendours within.

The main entrance is recessed at the south end of Castellain Road, embellished with mosaic flooring, a ceiling of elaborate scrolled plasterwork and an array of colourful embossed wall tiles. This leads through to a south bar where tilework continues at dado-level height punctuated by a large marble fire surround. At the end of the bar is a curved timber screen, marking the entrance to the restaurant (formerly the billiards hall). From this south bar you can survey the complete peninsula bar servery and the five distinct compartments radiating out from it. Each bar is divided from its neighbour by an ornate carved timber screen, all with embossed glass upper panels surmounted by broken pediments with urn finials that are flanked by miniature balustrades. The doors in the lower part of each screen were not for customers, they were instead designed to allow ‘pot boys’ to collect glasses – thereby avoiding the laborious process of entering each room in turn from the street. The compartmentalised arrangement around a promontory bar servery seen here is a late example of this popular London plan, which had its heyday in the 1880s. By the 1890s, small drinking compartments had mostly given way to larger, fashionable saloon bars, as exemplified by the arrangement at the contemporary Warrington Hotel (p.x) just around the corner. The bar compartments are broadly of similar size, though the smallest, set adjacent to the main entrance, was formerly the ‘Ladies’ Bar’, as identified by etched glazing to the external door shown in archive photographs, but now lost. The room is also distinguished by its rotating glazed screens to the bar counter, these are often termed ‘snob screens’, though their placement here suggests it had less to do with Victorian haughtiness than affording some privacy to women drinkers (a concern for Victorian temperance campaigners, who felt such bars ‘encouraged’ women to drink).

The long peninsula servery is dominated by an immense island gantry. This ornamental centrepiece is carved with varied classical motifs, an original central clock bearing the pub’s name and shelving backed with etched glass to the two flanking sections beside the central opening. Given its precarious height, the ornate iron brackets fixing the island gantry to the ceiling are reassuring. The back wall of the servery - from which the counter projects out - has a further elaborate bar-back, this terminating in decorated coving and a broken pediment. The bar counter has been refronted as part of work of around 2000, with facsimile fielded panel borders applied. In the restaurant area, the bar fittings also date from this time. This rear room was the billiards hall of the 1890s pub. The steel trusses and the central haystack rooflight remain in this room along with a classical fire surround to the south wall. The cellar beneath the restaurant has been opened for diners, this retaining flagstone floors, brick vaults (converted to dining booths) and some original shelving of stone and slate. As is to be expected, glazing has been replaced throughout the pub over the years, to varied effect. The intricate plasterwork ceiling in the main body of the pub is worthy of particular attention, this having been extensively and expertly restored following a major collapse in 2015.