Anchor, Oxford

Rebuilt in red brick in Tudor style in 1937 for Hall's Oxford Brewery (note the letters 'HOB' in metalwork above the entrance doors). The interior underwent an award-winning refurbishment in the early 1990s and still retains much of the sense of the 1930s original. Built with three rooms and an off-sales, two rooms have now been linked and the off-sales absorbed into the public bar. The public bar, fronting Hayfield Road, still has its vertically boarded counter, three-bay, distinctive Art Deco bar-back, Tudor-shaped stone fire surround and original fixed seating. The saloon in the angle of the roads has a rather more ornate counter and another Tudor-shaped stone fire surround, but the bar back fitting is modern, although original panelling below it remains.

Where the saloon has been joined to the third room the counter has been extended in an exemplary fashion to match the original; and there is an original corner bench. What may have been a loggia has been turned into a new small room. The right-hand lobby has a dado of inter-war tiles and the left-hand (disused one) a terrazzo dado; colourful floor tiling in all lobbies. Both gents' and ladies' toilets retain original wall tiles and the gents' has a fine set of old urinals. The pub is now more gastro-style, but drinkers are welcome.