Penshurst Arms, Homerton

Local listing:- An estate pub, dated 1864, built contemporaneously with the development of Penshurst Road and adjoining streets. The building has been very cleverly designed to make the best of the street corner site it occupies. The pub has not been in use for 15 years or more and is extremely neglected. The intentions of the present owner are unclear. The pub has three storeys with three bays on both west and south elevations. Between the two elevations and facing the street corner a rounded brick column, flanked by vermiculated quoins and surmounted by a very prominent curved pediment proudly proclaiming '1864 Penshurst Arms' in large lettering. A striking and wholly successful composition. At first floor on both elevations three curved window openings with fine curved cornices with vermiculated keystones and supported by console brackets. The middle window opening is blind on the west elevation. A handsome composition. Upper floor windows plainer with depressed arches surmounted by straight cornices with consoles and less prominent vermiculated keystones; also one blind on west elevation. A nice scaling down from first floor windows.Two round-cornered emtablatures wrapped round the building: one above the ground floor level and one just below the parapet above the second floor – which help to hold the composition in its street corner setting. At ground floor the composition is broken up by Corinthian pilasters – eight singles and three pairs. However, the whole of the ground floor has been disfigured by alteration (which seems reversible) including closing up of entrances and ugly fenestration. The entire building is neglected and in a poor state of repair.