Chelsea Funhouse (at World's End Distillery), Chelsea

The building dates back to 1888, is Grade II listed (Historic England reference 1391649) and the World's End pub gave its name to the whole surrounding area. The old tea garden now long gone, was used by Pepys and referred to by Congreve in his comedy Love for Love. The Rolling Stones used to rehearse in the pub in the early 1960s and an audition for bass players in 1962 resulted in Bill Wyman's name becoming known!

Grade II listing details: Public house built in 1897, originally called 'The World's End'. Architect unknown. MATERIALS: Red brick in Flemish Bond; rubbed and moulded and brick detailing; stone dressings and banding; slate roof with lead sheet to turret; granite facings to ground floor. PLAN: 3 storeys, basement and attic. Ground floor public house; first-floor function room; residential accommodation above. EXTERIOR: Style: Free Flemish Revival with Norman Shaw and Ernest George influence. Ground floor pub front projects on SW elevation; polished grey granite; granite pilasters and angle pier with Ionic capitals, bearing modern fascia. Three entrances with wrought-iron screens above (original central entrances to each elevation now modified as windows). Entrances to either side of the SW elevation set within lobbies with curved windows. External joinery mainly original. Some original etched and cut window glass, mainly in the doors and upper lights of the windows; some larger panes have been replicated, the remainder plain glass. Upper floors richly modelled with extensive stone banding continued along window piers. Cornice continues around both elevations; section to NW and turret with carved relief decoration. Bays articulated by chamfered brick pilasters; some surmounted by beasts bearing shields. Elaborate Flemish gables with decorative moulded brick panels to top stage. Timber sash windows with glazing bars to upper sections. NW elevation: three window range surmounted by gable with scrolled broken-apex pediment. First and second floors have central tripartite mullioned window flanked by single windows: those to first floor have flat arches with carved relief decoration; those to second floor windows have depressed gauged-brick arches with keystones, central window with triple keystones and richly decorated tympanum with grotesque mask. Two windows to gable with plain tympana and triple keystones. Blind bay with chimney stack carrying aedicule with moulded brick swag, grotesque mask and scrolled pediment, bearing cartouche with pub name. Corner expressed by bold octagonal turret; rubbed brick colonnettes to angles; triple-light bay windows to each floor. Octagonal lead roof sumounted by timber cupola. SW elevation: two window range surmounted by gable with segmental broken-apex pediment. Elliptical bay windows to first floor with parapets continued upwards to form balconettes to windows above with carved relief decoration. Second-floor tripartite mullioned windows with tympana matching that to NW elevation. Two windows to gable. INTERIOR: Pub interior altered. Ground floor open-plan with central bar. Some original features, including cast iron-columns and decorative finishes. Late C19 chimneypieces. Original staircase. First-floor function room with timber chimneypiece. Rooms above first floor not inspected. HISTORY The World's End was a horse-bus terminus. It was rebuilt in 1897 to replace an earlier pub on the same site. It occupied a corner site at the convergence of King's Road and World's End Passage. The adjacent terraces were demolished in the C20. SOURCES: Pevsner, The Buildings of England, London 3: North West; Mark Girouard, Victorian Pubs' 1975 EVALUATION OF IMPORTANCE: A fine example of a public house in the gin-palace genre dating from the 1895-9 boom in pub building. Of high townscape importance.