Commercial Inn, Shaw

The interior of this Samuel Smiths pub has been significantly changed twice in recent years and now has five separate rooms – three of which retain old fittings.

The lobby has a black and white tiled floor and dado panelling (age?) and at the rear is a small servery created in 2017. The passage runs to the left and there is a newly created small ‘Smoke Room’ (wording in the door) which also has a bar counter of the new servery. Opposite i.e. in the middle front of the pub is the separate public bar as a result of the wall being put back in 2017. This has a door with modern but good ‘Public Bar’ etched panel in it, a flagstone floor that looks new, the fixed seating has been there for some time but the fireplace is modern. Three years ago the central area of the pub was very open with a bar counter situated where the wall of the smoke room is now situated.

The first of the original rooms is the ‘Commercial Room’ on the front right with a door, carpet, very old fixed seating but a replacement Victorian-style fireplace. A puzzle is the position of the very old baffle with a frosted panel in the top – such baffles (or draught screens) are always positioned by the entrance door to a room!

At the rear right is the tiny ‘Bar Parlour’ with a door, old, possibly inter-war fixed seating but the fireplace is another recently installed Sam Smiths one – the red brick-shaped tiles in front of it also look modern. On the far left is the small ‘Tap Room’ with a doorway, lino tiled floor, and another recent tiled and cast-iron fireplace. The fixed seating looks inter-war as does the dado panelling where there is no seating. Throughout the pub there are very good etched and frosted windows with room names on them – some may possibly be original. The ‘toilets’ one on a door to the passage at the rear confirms many of these panels are modern (or all of them?).