A Guide to Nottingham's Art Deco Pubs
Thinking of a visit to Nottingham for my Art Deco Walk? Here's some Art Deco pubs you can visit while you're here.
Here are some of the buildings that are featured in my Art Deco Pubs talk (the third date for which is now sold out - I’ll be running this event again next year) Meanwhile here’s a guide to some of the pubs which are still open that are well worth a visit…
The Bath Inn, 1 Handel St, Sneinton, Nottingham NG3 1JE
While The Bath Inn is not what I’d call strictly Art Deco, I’m probably splitting hairs because it’s a rare example of an Egyptian revival exterior. The pub was re-faced in 1928 by Thomas Losco Bradley of The Midland Brewery at the height of the mania for all things related to the rediscovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt in 1922.
It was restored and reopened in 2021, and since then, the landlord Piers Wheatcroft Baker has decorated the interior in an idiosyncratic Deco-inspired manner, with plenty of Egyptian-style artefacts, Tamara De Lempicka prints, and many more weird and wonderful knick-knacks.
More info on The Bath Inn on the CAMRA website.
The Lord Roberts, 24 Broad St, Nottingham NG1 3AN
The Lord Roberts was built 1936-7 as part of a spate of pub rebuilding by the major local breweries in the 1930s. The architects were W.B. Starr & Hall, who worked on numerous licensed houses around the city for The Home Brewery, The Nottingham Brewery and in this case, Shipstone’s.
The metal windows and concrete fin with a moderne flat roof make for a distinctive building on a prominent corner site. The interior is typical of an Improved Pub with a central service bar and comfortable layout.
These days, it’s independently run and very friendly. There is a beer garden and you can even order pizza into the pub from the nearby branch of Pizza Punks.
More info on The Lord Roberts Facebook Page.
The Vat & Fiddle, 12 Queensbridge Rd, Nottingham NG2 1NB
Another “Improved Pub” rebuilt by the architects W.B. Starr & Hall, this time in 1938 for The Nottingham Brewery. It was originally a rebuilding of The Grove Tavern and went through a series of name changes in the 1980s and 1990s (variously going by Miami, Ziggy’s, The Grove and Tom Hoskins before being named The Vat & Fiddle in 1997, in tribute to its proximity to the HMRC offices).
Not much of the Deco-era interior survives, but there is a very nice bit of terrazzo flooring near the corner door.
These days it is the Brewery Tap for the local beer behemoths Castle Rock and always has a large selection of Cask and Craft Ales available.
More info on The Vat & Fiddle’s website.
The Wolds, Loughborough Rd, West Bridgford, Nottingham NG2 7HZ
Another W.B. Starr & Hall Shipstone’s pub, it is much changed from its original incarnation as The Wolds Hotel, which opened in 1939.
It’s still possible to make out the fins and brick patterning, Shipstone’s star logo and some of the original curved metal window frames, but on the whole, the pub has been altered almost beyond all recognition from what was described even into the 1950s as “The Most Modern Hotel in the County”. There is still a central service bar, and the large interior has been extended to accommodate a contemporary dining pub, now part of the Hungry Horse chain.
The Test Match Hotel, Gordon Square, West Bridgford, Nottingham NG2 5LP
Interiors of The Test Match Hotel, Gordon Sq. West Bridgford (Photos: Lucy Brouwer)
While the exterior of The Test Match is more Neo-Georgian than Art Deco, the interiors are worth travelling for and have been Grade II* listed.
The Test Match Hotel was the first new licensed house in West Bridgford built in the 20th Century. When it eventually opened in 1938, the man from Hanson’s Brewery was heard to exclaim that the magistrate’s hearing took “even longer than beating the Australians in the Test Match”, so although it is over a mile from Trent Bridge, the hotel has a cricket-inspired name and theme.
Now run by Greene King, the furniture has been updated, but the once luxurious wood panelling, terrazzo floors and sweeping curves of the original interiors, for the most part, remain.
More info on The Test Match
The Vale, 780 Mansfield Rd, Woodthorpe, Nottingham NG5 3GG
The Vale is a 20-minute bus ride from Nottingham city centre, on a busy intersection between Daybrook and Woodthorpe. Along with several other pub designs by prominent Nottingham architect T. Cecil Howitt, it featured in the 1938 Architect’s Journal pubs edition (with an influential article on Improved Pubs by the architect E.B. Musman). Although it does not have a flat roof, I think it bears a resemblance to Musman’s pubs, The Comet, Hatfield (1936) and The Nag’s Head, Bishop’s Stortford (1935).
When it was opened by The Home Brewery in 1938, it was fitted out in light oak panelling with silver gilt bands, rubber floor tiles and mirrored surfaces. Traces of the interior remain, with original door fixtures, air vents in the Smoke Room and photos of the pub in its heyday.
It is now run by Greene King - more info on The Vale.
The Abdication, 89 Mansfield Rd, Daybrook, Nottingham NG5 6BH
Not so much an Art Deco pub, as a Micropub in an Art Deco building. The Abdication is a smashing small pub that sits directly opposite The Home Brewery’s old office building, the monumental Sir John Robinson House, by T. Cecil Howitt (started 1936, completed 1950s), which used to bear the Brewery’s trademark “Home of The Best Ales” in lights on its imposing tower. These days, ‘Ales’ has been replaced with Nottinghamshire County Council’s logo as they use it for offices.
The Abdication is so called because it finds its home in Coronation Buildings, built 1937. (See what they did there?)
Coronation Buildings were built as shop units by Nottingham architects Calvert, Gleave and Jessop, and the shop fronts mostly still have their original metal window frames and Vitrolite panels.
More on The Abdication on their website.
There’s lots more information and archive research on pub buildings and the architects who designed them in my Nottingham Art Deco Pubs talk. There are a limited number of tickets remaining for the event at The Vat & Fiddle, Tuesday, 19 August 2025, doors 6.30 pm. TICKETS
The Lord Roberts and The Bath Inn both feature on my Art Deco Nottingham walk for Art Deco Society UK (I have previously run this as Deco in the Details Part 2). Tickets from the Society with a discount for members (but non-members are welcome). Saturday, 13 September, 2 pm. TICKETS