Three Horseshoes, Southall

As at August 2013, Ealing Council have agreed plans for this fine pub to be converted to three shops with flats above. On a busy corner in the centre of Southall, the Three Horseshoes is a work by the noted pub architect T H Nowell Parr. It was begun in 1914 but the coming of World War I and hard times afterwards meant that it was not completed until about 1922. The exterior is a good one with a brown-tiled ground floor and jettied first floor which includes lovely bay windows. The outside doors name the rooms within on bold brass plates: reading from left to right we have saloon, public bar and private bar. Another door on the South Road side is thought to have led to a jug-and-bottle counter but it is hard to make much sense of the geography as a corridor has been amalgamated with the private bar and there is some very confusing woodwork which shows that the counter has been altered and cut back. However, the rest of the pub is remarkably intact and a good, quite early, example of ‘brewers’ Tudor’ with all rooms having mock half-timbering, beamed ceilings and their original counter and back fittings. The saloon is notable for its attractive alcoves behind Tudor arches (Parr usually worked a few Tudor arches into his woodwork).