Warrington Hotel, Maida Vale

Boasting one of the most opulent interiors of any London pub, this is a prime example of the extremes to which pub designers went during the golden age of pub building in the late 19th century.

Currently owned by Ewe Hospitality, this substantial end-of-terrace pub was built in 1857 and underwent a magnificent refit probably in the 1890s. The grand entrance porch is embellished with glorious tiled columns and an intricate mosaic floor that announces the name of the pub.  Two of the porch’s three doors are still in use. On entering the luxurious right-hand room, the eye is first attracted to the elegantly curving semi-circular bar counter and the elaborate canopy above it. This counter looks out onto a spacious room that is a feast for the eyes.  The grey marble of a stately fireplace is echoed by the two marble pillars that support arches enhanced with gilt patterning. All around the walls is a dizzying series of mirrors – nearly forty of them - each separated from its neighbour by a spiralling wooden pillar. At the far end, beneath another arch, is a recessed bay containing a large window with decorative stained glass.  The ceiling is decorated with highly detailed foliage patterns. The woodwork below the counter is original, curves upward elegantly and contains intricate oval emblems within lozenge-shaped surrounds.  The woodwork in the bar-back is supported in two places by small marble pilasters which have a sensual bulge entirely in keeping with the excesses of the decor throughout the pub. The paintings of naked ladies on the canopy and elsewhere date only from 1965. 

On the left of the bar-back is an opening to the small middle room, but originally there was no such access (as evidenced by a scene in the film Bunny Lake is Missing, made in 1965). This begs the question – just how did staff gain access to the bar of the middle room? There has certainly been some minor re-organization of the layout.  For example, a door which once connected left and right rooms  now leads only a to a modern corridor. 

The left-hand room was once clearly divided into three, as the patterning in the ceiling shows.  The woodwork below the counter and matchboard panelling on the walls is all much less elaborate than in the grander right-hand room.  The simpler bar-back in here very probably dates from the 1890s re-fit. A door containing patterned glass once led to a corridor and to the right-hand room but it has been sealed up. An ugly modern banquette has been unsympathetically inserted in this room. In both rooms the upper areas of various partitions contain hundreds of small glass panels with foliage motifs. 

Over the first floor landing is an impressive Victorian skylight and below it some deep, ornate cornices.