Viewed from the outside, The Crown stands out gloriously from its neighbours, with magnificent tiling covering the exterior in an explosion of colour, and grandiose 19th century styling that carries faint echoes of the Wild West. Inside, the pub is a temple to High Victorian splendour, complete with elaborate tile work, geometric floor, and brass-tapped beer kegs; not to mention wood panelled snugs, intricate stained glass windows, and an altar-style red granite bar, which together give this former gin palace an almost devotional feel. Lit by gas lamps, which give off an old-time atmospheric glow, there is even a heated brass footrest running the length of the bar, to offer drinkers welcome comfort during the cold winter nights.
The Crown remains frozen in time, preserved as it was in 1885, when the young architecture student Patrick Flanagan inherited and refurbished the premises. Local lore tells how Flanagan employed Italian craftsmen, drafted in to Belfast to meet a boom in demand for church building, to work on the bar ‘after hours’ – a claim which goes some way to explain the bar’s décor. If the ornaments have a touch of the ecclesiastical, however, the ambiance is thoroughly profane – The Crown is a fully working pub, and one of the busiest in Belfast, popular with both locals and tourists, as well as with audiences from the nearby Grand Opera House.
“When you think about the kind of decoration that was used in other bars, in banks, shops, even in hospitals and the city hall, there was a lot of decorative work. So I don’t think we needed to import any craftsmen”
This monument to British and Irish drinking history has been owned by The National Trust since 1978. And while it isn’t the only pub looked after by the charity, The Crown’s city centre location and perennial popularity pose a unique challenge. “It does get very hard usage. Of course, it was designed to withstand that – in theory ceramics and wood and brass rails can put up with a lot – but they do get a lot of punishment every day,” says Frances Bailey, Curator at The National Trust, Northern Ireland, adding that the pub is “stuffed with people” any evening of the week.
“The corners of tiles get chipped, the wood gets a lot of dust and dirt brought in off the street, and also some of the glass and mirrors and windows have been smashed, either through bombs or vandalism through the years.” The casual reference to bombs is a sombre reminder of the difficult history that The Crown has lived through. Situated on Great Victoria Street, the pub is a stone’s throw away from the Europa hotel, dubbed ‘the most bombed hotel in Europe’, which suffered 28 separate bomb attacks during the Troubles.
Despite this, the 170 year-old Grade A-listed building, which has a noticeable slant to it when viewed from the street, has remained remarkably intact. “It’s survived miraculously, really,” Bailey admits, pointing out that exterior repairs, where shrapnel has been removed from the tiling, can nevertheless be seen. “The Crown actually stayed open right the way through the Troubles.
- The elaborate ornamental touches in The Crown makes for a regal drinking experience
Whenever there was any damage, it just kept on going,” she adds. One of the last bombs ever to go off in the area was the 1993 bombing of the Europa by the Provisional IRA. The bomb went off early in the morning, before The Crown had opened. With the doors barred, the impact of the blast reduced their intricate panes to a shower of shards. “That was 1890’s glass, so it was a real loss. But even then, the team just swept up and one day later they were open again.”
The destruction of the door glass was a significant blow for the building because, as Bailey explains, the Trust’s philosophy is to “only replace when it becomes hopeless to do anything else”. Replacements are carried out to the highest standard to maintain the building’s authenticity – an extremely costly process. Current tenants Mitchell and Butlers have contributed handsomely to the upkeep and renovation of the bar, putting up £400,000 for renovation work in 2007.
The process inspired a BBC documentary, ‘The Crown Jewel’, which also investigated The Crown’s alleged resident ghost, the spirit of a prostitute, said to have died of a broken neck after tumbling down the pub’s stairs. While the intricacy and sheer beauty of The Crown cannot be denied, however, Bailey is sceptical about the tales of moonlighting Italians. “I think that’s a load of baloney. You didn’t have to be an imported craftsman to do the kind of work that’s featured in The Crown. This is very standard high Victorian decorative work, that was produced by the mile,” she says.
- Mosaic tiling at the entrance
The tiles, in particular, were produced in England, by Craven Dunill, and much of the glasswork may come from elsewhere in Britain. Nor was Belfast was lacking its own building expertise and craftsmanship. “When you think about the kind of decoration that was used in other bars, in banks, shops, even in hospitals and the city hall, there was a lot of decorative work. And of course we had one of the biggest shipyards in the world at the time, who were producing very high class ironwork. So I don’t think we needed to import any craftsmen.”
If its origins are less exotic than alleged, The Crown is nevertheless rich in gems, not least its distinctive, high-walled snugs, topped by three dimensional carvings of mythical creatures, and with hinged doors to ensure total seclusion from any brouhaha outside. Within, brass plaques for striking matches and bells for calling waiting staff evoke the ghosts of gentlemen’s conversations past. The snugs are also notable for highly unusual decorative technique used on their rectangular mirrors, and have even made it onto the silver screen, recreated in Pinewood studios for Carol Reed’s 1947 classic Odd Man Out, starring James Mason.
It all goes to make a quite extraordinary venue to sink a pint of Guinness – one of the UK’s best preserved examples of the ‘gin palace’ style, and a testament to the lure of the public house that has become so integral to British and Irish culture. All in all, a most regal establishment. Long may its reign continue.
The Crown Bar, Great Victoria Street, Belfast. Tel: +44 (0)28 9024 3187.
Images courtesy of the National Trust.