Details
SD 34031757
664/0/10027
SOUTHPORT
UNION STREET
Nos 14 and 16, The Guest House
II
Public house. Circa 1900; built before 1910 for Robert B Haslam. Sandstone ashlar with carved decorative detail, timber framed façade to upper storey, brick rear wall, red tile roof. Arts and Crafts tudor style. 2 storeys with cellar and attic, 4 bays; wide gabled bays flanking narrow entrance bay and a side entrance bay right. End ridge stacks, rendered, stone cornice, cylindrical red chimney pots. Main and side entrances have glazed and panelled outer doors with 8-and 10-pane overlight, chamfered surround, shallow pilasters with carved panels of birds and flowers; pilaster also far left. Above the entrance an ornate plaster panel with raised lettering: 'THE/ GUEST/ HOUSE' and stylised rose trees. Paired 3-light mullion and transom windows to ground floor, a small 4-light canted bay above entrance, flanked by large 4-light mullion and transom windows in the gables; a small 2-light window far right and 2 four-light flat roofed dormers in the roof slope centre and right. All with leaded panes. Interior: the main entrance door is ribbed below the lock bar, the lower panels having square cut-outs which contrast with roundel in upper half with leaf motif in stained glass, in a glazed screen which opens into a wide entrance passage with moulded wallpaper below dado. Polished wood, brass fittings and stained glass panels with flower motifs throughout; oak and other woods used in doors, panelling to walls and bar front, moulded dado rails, fire surrounds with distinctive architectural design of tapering pilasters, carved panels of flowers and birds, and inlay. The bar serves the public bar directly [right] and has the original 4-section glazed screen with glass sashes, 3 of the lower sashes removed. The public bar has a glazed door and panels with belt pushes above the bench seating. The left room has bevelled glass panels. The narrow stairs are now enclosed, the door probably removed from the front room, and the tapering chamfered newel post has been shortened. The room rear left has a wood block floor and is now open to the bar area, with an inserted stained glass screen. Passage to toilets beyond. The front entrance far right is wide, having paired glazed doors. It opens into a passage to the former outdoor bar and access to the cellars and rear yard. The cellar ceiling has been raised and a beer store built behind the bar late C20. The upper floor front rooms have wooden fire surrounds and rear left a large top-lit music or billiard room with flower and leaf motifs in stained glass.
By the late C19 Southport was a popular resort and residential town and the former terraced off the north end of Lord Street included beer houses, beer sellers, dining rooms and small shops. Robert Haslam ran a beerhouse at no. 16 Union Street in 1900. He was also an ale and porter bottler and had premises at 8 Haweside Street. During the later C19 'improved' public house design was promoted nationally and became popular as an alternative to the gin palace, promoting middle class standards of good taste and comfort, and this was style Haslam used when he rebuilt his own beerhouse together with George Cruikshank's beerhouse,'The Union', at no. 14. The "Guest House" was built by 1910 and its footprint is shown on the Ordnance Survey plan of the town surveyed in 1909, the frontage well situated to be seen along Castle Street. By 1925 Haslam had a manager at the Guest House and he lived in Melling Road.
Sources: Directories of Southport, 1900,1910, 1920-21, 1924-25. Ordnance Survey plan of Southport [East] 1909. Godfrey edition.
