Friday Photo: The Black Horse Public House

Today’s Friday photo is the Black Horse public house in Northfield. Now a Grade II* listed building, it was designed by Francis Goldsborough as the flagship public house of Davenports brewery, built in 1929-30. A spate of new pubs were built during the 1920s; there was a push to create ‘reformed’ pubs with improved facilities that consciously appealed to families and to a mix of incomes and classes, in an effort to distance themselves from the drunkeness usually associated with public houses. The Neo-Tudor / late Medieval design of the Black Horse was one of the favoured styles for this new type of pub. Although there has been some alteration in the later C20 and early C21, much of the original detailing still exists. It features a close studded timber frame with white washed infill, many of the timbers are gorgeously decorated; bressumer beams, wall plates and barge boards are richly carved.
English heritage states one of its reasons for listing as being due to the architectural quality ‘the building is widely considered to be one of the finest examples of public house architecture of the inter-war period, combining careful planning, authentic construction, imaginative design and inspired craftsmanship.’