Halfway House

A large, ‘improved public house’ built 1932 for Ramsden’s brewery by local architects Glendinning & Hanson and designed with a central hall-lounge – a fully-developed advance on the old-style drinking lobby, equipped with its own element of seating and housing the main servery. The counter and back-fitting here are impressive (although now typically marred by a modern pot-shelf). Other surviving original features include an unused off-sales, some of the seating and a lofty vaulted function room upstairs. The formerly separate snug and smoke room were merged into one end of the hall-lounge during the 1970s.