Description

31/0/10425 GREAT NORTH ROAD
23-JUL-02 The Felix and Firkin Public House

GV II

Felix and Firkin pub, formerly the Red Lion Hotel. Pub, 1930, by W.F. Foster (1876-1940) for the Meux Brewery. Brown brick with extensive stone dressings, tiled roof. Square in plan, with an extension to the rear. Three storeys.
EXTERIOR: Seven-bay front to the street. End bays slightly projecting. Central Corinthian doorcase to centre, with pedimented window above within a stone surround. Rusticated brickwork to ground floor, entrance flanked by bow windows. 9/9 pane sash windows with brick arches and shutters. Modillion cornice. Hopper-heads dated 1930. Left-hand bay has a blind arch in yellow brick at first floor, with a large console beneath, carrying a wrought iron bracket supporting a carved figure of a red lion. Canted corner to south-east with scallop-headed doorcase. Five-bay return elevation with Corinthian doorcase to left-hand bay, next to a projecting square tower, with square windows, capped with a pyramidal roof with finial. Rear elevation arranged on two sides around a courtyard, with arched openings to ground floor (that to the tower is blind, with rusticated voussoirs in yellow brick). 9/9-pane windows to first floor, 3/6-pane windows to second floor. Lower projecting continuation to west.
INTERIOR: Ground floor has been much altered already. Fretwork staircase to first floor remains in situ, lit at first floor landing level with a circular skylight with a sunburst effect in blue and yellow glass. Large room to the rear extension retains its decorative plasterwork.
HISTORY: This site has a long history of use as a coaching inn, going back to the 15th century, positioned on a major road into London: the earliest reference to an inn on this site is to a messuage, 'late called the Cardinal's Hat and now the Antelope' in 1439. By the later 19th century it had become a 'Masonic, Family and Commercial Hotel'. The site of the coaching inn was truncated in 1901 on the laying-out of Fitzjohn Avenue to the south. It was rebuilt in 1930 by the Meux Brewery, using their in-house architect, William Foster. The prominent carved lion, on the dramatic wrought iron bracket, were re-used from the earlier building. The new premises included a banqueting room, two dance halls and a Masonic lodge, in addition to hotel rooms. Despite having had its ground floor changed, it remains a very good example of an inter-war road-house in the Neo-Georgian style, drawing on a wide range of stylistic sources for inspiration. Extensive alterations were carried out in 1985; the ground floor currently (July 2002) being altered.
SOURCES: Barnet building control records; Selby, 'Barnet Pubs' (1995), 133-140; Jolliffe & Jones, 'Hertfordshire Inns & Public Houses' (1995), 13.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• The Red Lion at Wikipedia
• The Red Lion official website
• Wikidata Q20876387

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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