The Garibaldi

Summary

A public house of 1937, probably designed by A T and Bertram Butler.

Reasons for Designation

The Garibaldi, Stourbridge, an ‘improved’ public house of 1937, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

* Architectural Interest: a confident and well-executed design that achieves a rounded architectural composition, which served the requirements of the 'improved' public house movement;
* Historic interest: a notable example of the ‘'improved' public house and, most probably, the work of A T and Bertram Butler, prolific and versatile architects of high quality public house buildings in the inter-war years, primarily for the Wolverhampton and Dudley Breweries;
* Layout: neatly designed to fit within a butterfly-plan, The Garibaldi has additional design interest;
* Intactness: the building remains substantially intact, with only minor alterations to its plan and fittings in the public areas;
* Interior fittings: the bar counters and bench seating with pipes survive unusually well for a building of this type and date.

History

Large numbers of urban public houses had been built in Birmingham throughout the C19, especially following the Beerhouse Act of 1830. Drunkenness and bad behaviour were often claimed as the results and helped to fuel strong campaigns by temperance organisations, including the Salvation Army and many Black Country Nonconformist chapels, which had their own temperance groups.

The general perception that there were too many pubs led to the 1904 Licensing Act which established a fund to compensate landlords whose pubs were closed by the magistrates. A further incentive was the need to ensure that drunkenness did not damage the war effort and in 1916 Lloyd George went so far as to nationalise pubs near to munitions factories around Carlisle. The reaction to all of this by the brewing industry was to develop the ‘improved’ or ‘reformed’ public house which would attract respectable customers from the growing middle class. Early examples of this type of pub had included the Tabard Inn at Bedford Park in London, but Birmingham was amongst the first areas to pursue this pattern as a matter of policy.

Arthur Chamberlain, the Chairman of the Licensing Justices adopted a practice of ‘fewer and better’, closing inner city pubs and transferring their licenses to new public houses in the suburbs, and the licensing magistrates carefully scrutinised the plans and positioning of these new buildings. Charles Gore, the Bishop of Birmingham, said that ‘the public houses … ought to be on the lines of a German beer garden, where there was no reflection on a man, or his wife and children, if they are seen going in or coming out’. To this end the image of the buildings was often that of a manor house, either medieval, Tudor or Georgian, and the planning included spacious bar rooms, with family or function rooms and restaurants. At the centre of the ground floor was a service area, largely surrounded by bar counters, which allowed for efficient working and also the monitoring of customers’ behaviour.
 
Eventually these requirements of respectability and family spaces flowed back from the suburbs to affect the design of new pubs in town and city centres.

The Garibaldi was built in 1937, on the site of an earlier pub of the same name, probably to the designs of A T and Bertram Butler, for Wolverhampton and Dudley Breweries Limited. The earlier building is shown on the First Edition Ordnance Survey Map of 1885 and is marked as an Inn. This building is also shown on the map of 1938, which presumably was surveyed prior to the rebuild in 1937. The building is shown on its current footprint on later maps.

The Garibaldi underwent extensive refurbishment in 2006.

Details

A public house of 1937, probably designed by A T and Bertram Butler.

MATERIALS: subtly polychromatic shades of red and brown brick in Flemish bond, and clay tile roofs. There are timber window frames to the ground floor and metal frames to the first floor.

PLAN: a butterfly plan positioned on a corner location. The entrance lobby is to the right of the corner, with a free flowing circulation through both ranges, around serveries set at the rear. Service areas and a stair to the first floor stand behind the serveries. A single-storey function room is attached at rear junction of the main ranges.

EXTERIOR: the building has two floors constructed in a gently modulating range of brick shades, and is marked by a tall corner chimney. To both sides of the chimney are tall two-storey fronts with double-height canted bays under brick gables. The Cleveland Street range is of three wide bays, under a deep catslide roof with three attic dormers, a central brick stack and oversailing eaves. The main entrance is to the left, with a stone step, and there is a sealed door opening to the right bay. The central brick bay is canted. The Cross Street range is two bays wide under a catslide with two dormers, an end stack and oversailing eaves. To the right is a door with two stone steps. To its left is a door opening that has been shortened to form a window opening. At the left end is a canted brick bay. Attached to the left is a single-storey brick extension. The road front windows and doors have moulded brick to their openings. To the rear is a polygonal single-storey function room. It is overlooked by the first floor windows of the ranges behind. The rear elevation of the corner frontage is canted and rises above the eaves level of the two ranges that adjoin it to either side. All rear openings have brick soldier courses. Doors to the frontages are panelled with leaded, glazed lights at upper level.

INTERIOR: the original interior fittings are largely intact, including serveries with matchboard-panelled bar-fronts and bar-backs, bench seating with some adaptation and heating pipes below, and some lavatory fittings. The fireplaces to the main bar area, to the left of the principal entrance, and the Lounge have been removed. The bar to the rear right has timber ledges fixed to the walls. The ceilings have plain cornices which extend across encased steel beams. The first floor was not inspected.

Sources

Other
Hitchmough, T. 'Black Country Pubs', 2008. CD-Rom available from www.longpull.co.uk,

End of official list entry

All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Print the official list entry