Cock & Bottle

This friendly, street-corner pub built in 1850 has one outstanding feature – a bar-back of exceptional ornateness. It has a series of round columns with florid Corinthian capitals below a broad frieze terminating in a band of ornament. The various round-headed projections on the columns have long been a mystery. Near the bottom of each is also a short round stub. And if you take a close look at the servery you’ll see it has been cut back around the modern opening to the inner room. A column has been removed. On the underside of the cornice you’ll spot a hole. It’s possible that all this means that there was once a gravity-feed system for spirits and wines (housed above the bar) which were fed down the pipes in the hollow columns to cocks on the stubs. Note also the pretty stained glass panels of swans which relate to the old name of the pub which changed in the late 1980s. The snob screens to the rear room are a modern bit of re-Victorianisation.

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