Description

Built by 1780; shopfront by Thomas Purves Marwick 1892, interior rebuilt and extended by Thomas Purves Marwick, 1899; renovation Covell Matthews 1966-67. 3-storey and attic, 4-bay former tenement on corner site with double height public bar at ground. Coursed sandstone rubble. Architraved windows to front. 6-bay barfront at ground with panelled Corinthian consoles supporting corniced fascia; doors to outer bays; 5-bay return; 1st floor windows corniced. 3 fine piend-roofed bowed dormers. Wrought-iron brackets support sign and armoured helmet.

Fixed stained glass windows to 1st floor (bar); otherwise 12-pane and plate glass timber sash and case. Ashlar coped skews; brick stack to gable, rendered to E; grey slates.

INTERIOR: fine late Victorian interior decorative scheme. Lobbies with two-leaf timber-panelled doors (asymmetrically divided with etched glass to left-hand doors) and open finialled balustrade above in interior. Double height bar with embossed Minton tiling to walls to first floor under cills; deep cornice with scrolled brackets and Jacobean compartmented ceiling. Roughly square timber-panelled island counter with pilasters and scrolled brackets; match-strikers at upper edge; superstructure at sides and rear on slender columns; glazed timber partitions. Gantry with corbelled bowed central section and carved strapwork decoration above cornice. Large mirror advertising Drybrough's Pale Ale to right wall.

Statement of Interest

A Group with 138-150 (even nos) Rose Street as a significant surviving part of the original fabric of Edinburgh's New Town, one of the most important and best preserved examples of urban planning in Britain.

The Kenilworth Bar has a well-detailed late Victorian timber front and a very fine interior with striking embossed decorative tiling running high up the walls and an interesting Jacobean-revival style gantry. The large mirror advertising Drybrough's Ale is a fine example of a what was called a mirror showcard. Advertisement mirrors like this were widely distributed to pubs by brewers, distillers and wholesalers in the late Victorian period but many have since been destroyed.

Dean of Guild drawings suggest that Thomas Purves Marwick was responsible for the wooden front to the bar in 1892 and that the interior of that date may have been designed by Peter L B Henderson who made some alterations in 1893. The earlier layout at the front of the bar is similar to what survives today and parts of it may actually have been reused when it was rebuilt and extended by Marwick in 1899-1900. At that time Marwick created the island bar layout and extended the bar area into the adjacent property to the E with offices and extra rooms. The flat above the pub was also acquired and incorporated into the space below thus creating the impressive double height interior.

Thomas Purves Marwick (1854-1927) was the founder of the dynasty of Marwicks of which several generations were successful architects and whose clients included the National Bank and St Cuthbert's Co-operative Society. Thomas Purves Marwick was a competent designer in a variety of styles although particularly adept at the Free Renaissance and neo-Baroque. It is possible that the neo-Jaocobean style used here was dictated by the fact that Henderson had used it on the earlier public house some of which was perhaps re-used in the rebuilding. Henderson favoured the Jacobean in several of his interiors in the 1890s - such as the Central Bar at Leith - and this may have influenced Marwick's use of it in his rebuilding.

The client for the pub was Peter Fisher. Fisher had owned the property from at least 1884. From the mid-1870s he ran two other premises selling wines and spirits in South Richmond Street and West Richmond Street. Before the 1880s the property in Rose Street was purely domestic.

Though the exterior of the bar is unchanged, the interior, which had been altered in the earlier 20th century, was restored and parts carefully reinstated in 1966-67 by Covell Matthews who re-created the island bar layout. The modern wing to the rear was part of the redevelopment of Debenhams next door (see separate listing). Category changed from B to A in 2008 as part of Thematic Review of Heritage Pubs.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17567453

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.

Recommended Books

• 
  Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  County Durham (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England) by Elizabeth Williamson Nikolaus Pevsner(1983-03-11)
• 
  Period Property Manual (New Ed)
• 
  Liverpool: Pevsner City Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  Cornwall (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Worcestershire Revised Edition (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)