CAMPAIGN FOR REAL ALE

CAMBRIDGESHIRE - Peterborough, Hand & Heart

National Inventory of Historic Pub Interiors Part One

12 Highbury Street, Peterborough, PE1 3BE

Tel: 01733 564653

Opening Hours: 3 (11 Fri, Sat, Sun) to 11; 12 to 10.30

Draught Beer & Cider: Real Ales incl. SIBA beers

Public Transport: Bus: 1

Accomodation: Traditional English and Irish music on the third Thursday of the month

Listed Status: Not listed

View this pub on a local map

Situated in a small terrace, the Hand & Heart is a small purpose-rebuilt public house of the inter-war period, dating from 1938. Of two storeys in plain brick, with a flat roof it was built for Warwick & Richardson’s Brewery of Newark and is essentially intact and unaltered. Intact pubs from the inter-war period are very rare - the Vine Wednesfield, West Midlandsis a similar small intact 1930s built pub.

Sadly the two original front windows advertising 'Warwick's' have been replaced with similar, but not exact, copies in recent years. The front door on the left of the building leads into a small lobby and beyond an internal door in a full height glazed screen is the modest drinking lobby around the Jug bar (off sales), both areas with a distinct black and white tiled floor. The presence of a couple of bar stools confirms that this increasingly rare facility is in use here at times and the bell push to attract attention still remains on the left hand side. The screen in the drinking lobby can still be raised and lowered for service and the lower central panel is hinged and was used for transactions when this doubled as the off-sales, but is now permanently sealed, apparently at the insistence of 'Health & Safety'!. Note the number '2', a requirement of the licensing magistrates, on the screen in the drinking lobby.

A door on the right just short of the serving hatch leads to the public bar where the fabric and fittings from the Thirties scheme have survived very well. The bar counter has a distinctive Art Deco frontage; to the left there is a door to the servery for staff which has a hatch and shelf for service; and the mirrored bar back has succumbed to only modest changes to allow the inclusion of a fridge. Also preserved is the full set of original fitted seating. The only item that has been lost is the original fireplace which has been replaced by a brick one from the 1960/70s. Note the WWII memorial on the wall of the public bar – research confirms there are only 60 or so of these situated in pubs in the whole of the UK.

A door at the rear right corner of the drinking lobby still with 'Smoke Room' and '3' painted on it leads to a compact room. This retains its full set of original fitted seating and a baffle by the door. Service to the rear smoke room is via a hatch, which until the late 1990s had a door which could be opened and closed for service. The only other item that has been lost is the original fireplace which has been replaced by an inappropriate Victorian-style one. Other doors in the drinking lobby lead to an 'inside' ladies toilet still with 'Ladies' painted on it, and to a passageway to the 'outside' gents (the exterior passageway to the gents' is now covered over). The passageway to the gents has its own street entrance on the far left of the building.