CAMPAIGN FOR REAL ALE

YORKSHIRE (EAST) - Hull, Polar Bear

National Inventory of Historic Pub Interiors Part Two

229 Spring Bank, Hull, HU3 1LR

Tel:

Listed Status: Grade II

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The Polar Bear, sited near Hull’s one-time zoological gardens, was re-built in 1895 by prolific local architects Freeman, Son & Gaskell and its magnificent ceramic-fronted bar-counter, by Doulton’s of London, is one of only eleven remaining in the whole of the UK. (There is another in Hull, at the White Hart, Alfred Gelder Street). Other of Britain's Real Heritage Pubs with a ceramic bar counter are the Black Horse, Preston, Lancashire; Mountain Daisy, Sunderland, Tyne & Wear; Red Lion, Erdington, Birmingham; Garden Gate, Hunslet, Leeds, West Yorkshire; Golden Cross, Cardiff, Glamorgan, Wales; Crown, Belfast, Northern Ireland. Other examples can be found at Towler, Tottington, Greater Manchester where the bar has been moved; Town House, St Annes on Sea, Lancashire but it is in the little used function room with limited access; and Waterloo Hotel & Bistro, Newport, Gwent, Wales which has no public bar facility.

The same architects extended and refitted the pub for the Hull Brewery Company in 1922, adding the grand-domed ‘orchestra’ area to the main bar, and the resulting layout is much as we see today – except that an old-style mahogany ‘Café Bar’ was sadly destroyed in alterations of the 1980s. The fitted seating (and the stone signage outside) are from the 1922 scheme. Statutorily listed in 2005 following a successful application by CAMRA.