CAMPAIGN FOR REAL ALE

WEST MIDLANDS - Coventry, Black Horse

National Inventory of Historic Pub Interiors Part One

73 Spon End, Coventry, CV1 3HE

Tel: 024 7667 7360

Opening Hours: 8.30am to 11pm

Draught Beer & Cider: Draught Bass

Listed Status: Grade II

View this pub on a local map

Prominent three-storey early Victorian locals' pub with a former brew house at the rear. The interior consists of two long parallel rooms - public bar on the right and smoke room on the left - with a rear corridor forming a third drinking area and served via a hatch. This layout was created under plans of 1924. The decorative scheme created then survives virtually intact including a most remarkable feature - faux-timber wall panelling topped by a frieze. The central entrance leads to a small lobby lined in matchboarding and a blocked-up jug-and-bottle hatch (the space behind is now a small kitchen). The door on the right has an etched 'Bar' etched in the glass. The public bar has a panelled timber bar and mahogany bar-back fitting with moulded cornice from the1920s. The fixed seating with a baffle by the front door may be Victorian but the fireplace is a replacement.

The lounge on the left has all the walls lined with faux-timber panelling to high dado height, topped by a frieze of square panels each with a design of hydrangea flowers and foliage. The panels and frieze are likely to be made of Lincrusta. Unfortunately, it was painted white in 2006, but not behind/underneath the fixed seating where it retains its original brown stain. All around the room is elegant fixed upholstered seating dating from the 1920s which is the date of the timber surround of the fireplace, but the brick inset looks more modern. Service from the back of the bar is from a central doorway with shelf and a half-height door upholstered in buttoned leather from the 1920s with a door handle of the same vintage. The doors to both the public bar and smoke room have been shamfered to fit the frame, presumably after subsidence in the front part of the pub - there is a noticeable dip in the lounge.

At the rear the staircase hall was been turned into a further public drinking area and has a split door with sliding window for service to the bar but the fixed seating here is modern. Both gents' and ladies' toilets are in this area, presumably to replace outside toilets. In the later 19th century philanthropist and locally styled 'King of Spon End', Charles Lilly, a director of the Poor Relief Board during the Spon End Wakes, held court in an upstairs room of the Black Horse Inn. He adjudicated in disputes amongst the locals and was famous for his drinking challenges - a sport at which he was rarely beaten. Open from 8.30am including Sundays.