145 High Street West, The Bridge Hotel

Public house. 1820 front range with ground floor refronted late C19. Faience ground floor; brick with painted ashlar and stucco dressings; felted slate roof with brick and rendered chimneys. 4 storeys, 2x5 windows with round corner bay; rear left return 2 storeys, 4 windows. Main 4 - storey block has canted corner entrance with coloured patterned tiles in tall pilasters flanking renewed door under blind semicircular overlight; key to blind roundel in stone tympanum between lion - mask brackets to segmental pediment. Faience ground floor, rusticated above high plinth, has panels of patterned tiles in plinth and between windows. Sill string to fixed lights with glazing bars and voussoirs. Upper floors have cornice on second floor; sashes with galzing bars and projecting stone sills, except on second floor, and painted projecting stone lintels. Top window blind in rounded corner which has large Roman capitals BRIDGE HOTEL attached to brickwork. Top cornice. Low pitched hipped roof has raised section over rear entrance bay, and end chimneys. 5 - window left return in similar style except third floor band instead of second floor cornice, and left bay blind above door in elliptical - headed plain reveals under scroll - bracketed hood. 2 - storey extension of left return contiunes with one faience bay at right on ground floor, and at left a pilastered shop front with bracketed fascia. First floor has 4 sashes in plain reveals with lintel band and projecting stone sills; high coped parapet. The façade includes the word 'Billiards' in blue and gold. Billiards was a French game, played in Britain since at least the 16th century, but it was exceptionally popular in the 19th century when many pubs had bespoke billiard rooms. LISTED GRADE 2