The block of three buildings containingThe Tabardpublic house (formerly the Tabard Inn) is aGrade II* listed structure inChiswick, London. The block, with a row of sevengables in its roof, was designed byNorman Shaw in 1880 as part of the community focus of theBedford Park garden suburb. The block contains theBedford Park Stores, once a co-operative, and a house for the manager.[1]
The first floor of the pub building is host to theTabard Theatre.
The block was most likely inspired by Holborn's 1585Staple Inn, which similarly has a row of seven gables; a further inspiration is the 15th centurySparrowe's House, Ipswich, which has strongly projecting bays, gables, and a cornice above a row of shop windows.
The block, including no. 2 Bath Road, was built in 1880 by the architectNorman Shaw as part of the communal focus of Jonathan Carr's development of theBedford Park garden suburb; it included the inn, a house for the manager, and the Bedford Park Stores.[1][2] The block is near the corner with Acton Green, facingSt Michael and All Angels, Bedford Park, built at the same time as the community's church. The other two community buildings are theschool of art, a little further up Bath Road, andthe club house, on The Avenue.[3]
![The Tabard inn and the Bedford Park Stores were among the community buildings meant to form the focal point of Jonathan Carr's Bedford Park garden suburb.[3]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aFocus_of_Bedford_Park_Garden_Suburb.png)
A group from the Architectural Association paid a visit in January 1880 and commented that "the buildings will comprise a row or terrace of seven gables, like the old row in Holborn, and will include, beside the stores, a private house for the manager, [and] an old-fashioned inn".[4][3] The essayistIan Fletcher writes that the row of seven gables mentioned is presumablyStaple Inn, Holborn, but that Shaw probably drew the "heavily projecting bays" fromSparrowe's House, Ipswich.[3] That 15th century building, reworked in 1567, has gables and a cornice; it is decorated inside with ornamental ceilings and panelling.[5]
![The "heavily projecting bays"[3] of the 15th century Sparrowe's House, Ipswich](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aIpswich_Ancient_House.jpg)
![The "seven gables"[4] of Staple Inn, Holborn, 1585, as it looked in the 1880s](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aStaple_Inn._ILN_1886.jpg)
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The 3-storey block containing the stores, manager's house, and pub is built in red brick androughcast, inNorman Shaw'sBritish Queen Anne Revival (also called English Domestic Revival) style. The roofs are tiled. Of the seven bays on the front, facing Bath Road, three are for the stores and two each for the house, with recessedgables, and the pub. According toHistoric England, the Bedford Park buildings were "highly influential" on later suburbs, and were "widely imitated" both across Britain and in the United States.[1] Thearchitectural historianGavin Stamp comments thatVictorian era pub architecture was a "vulgar trade", mainly a matter for specialist architects such as Shoebridge & Rising who for example designed the nearbyDuke of Sussex, Acton Green, so that The Tabard and Norman Shaw formed an exception. Stamp saw it as significant that the pub's name evoked "Chaucer and Olde England", while the building looked nothing like "a contemporary gin palace".[6]
The Tabard pub has an entrance porch with Tuscan columns; to either side are windows divided into many small panes. The roughcast first floor of the pub has a pair of projecting bow windows, with small round windows on either side; a third similar gable faces west. A cornice forms an overhang above the windows, topped by two tile-hung gables, each with five smallmullioned windows.[1] The architectural historianNikolaus Pevsner described the Tabard as "especially attractive, with tile-hung gables and very original shallow-curved, completely glazed bay-windows".[7] The swing sign was painted in 1880 byThomas Matthews Rooke, one of the artists resident in Bedford Park.[3][8] The original sign was lost, but it was rediscovered during the 2016 refurbishment.[9]
The pub, depicted byThomas Erat Harrison, was among the buildings celebrated in an 1882 illustrated bookBedford Park on the then-fashionable garden suburb.[10]
The central house is of red brick on ground and first floors, contrasting with the pub. The four windows on the first floor are separated byDoricpilasters of red brick. Its gables are roughcast.[1]
The stores has three wide projecting shop-windows of many panes occupying most of its front face, above a red brick wall containing twolunettes for the basement; the front door is set in the middle window. The roughcast first floor has wide projecting 'Ipswich' patternoriel windows, supported on wooden brackets. The second floor, also roughcast, projects strongly; each bay has a seven-light window, the centre light larger than the rest and arched.[1]
On the ground floor of The Tabard are the originalArts and Crafts tiling byWilliam De Morgan and the tiled earlyArt Nouveau fireplace surrounds byWalter Crane.[8] There are moulded door and window surrounds,dado rails, and a window seat. The chimneypieces are bolection-moulded andnursery rhyme tiling. The bar counter is of panelled wood with a metal footrest. The pub has been extended to take in the ground floor of the manager's house to the east. This consists of two rooms, the lower part of their walls up to the dado rail panelled withtongue-and-groove timber.[1]
The first floor (now the theatre) is accessed by a staircase in the courtyard, again panelled up to the dado rail.[1]
The poet and campaigner forVictorian era buildingsJohn Betjeman wrote that The Tabard was a place where "men could play theclavichord to ladies intussore dresses and where supporters ofWilliam Morris could learn of early Socialism".[11]
The pub is now managed byGreene King;[8] before that it was managed byPunch Taverns andSpirit Pub Company under itsTaylor Walker Pubs brand.
On the first floor is theTabard Theatre, an intimate fringe theatre which as well as putting on productions of plays has hosted comedians such asAl Murray,Harry Hill andRussell Brand.[8]
The Bedford Park Stores building is now used as offices.[1]
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51°29′45″N0°15′17″W / 51.495704°N 0.254605°W /51.495704; -0.254605
