Historic pub The Dun Cow up for sale for £220,000
A Sunderland tavern with a historic pub interior of national importance is up for sale – with estate agents suggesting it could be at least partially turned into flats.
The Grade II listed Edwardian baroque Dun Cow, on the corner of Garden Place and High Street West, is on the Campaign for Real Ale’s national inventory of historic pub interiors.
And the building, opposite the city’s Empire theatre, it is now on the market with an asking price of £220,000.
“The ground floor bar has a wealth of period charm such as wooden partition walls with stained and leaded glass,” said Mark Worley, associate director of Christie + Co’s Newcastle office, which is handling the sale.
“And above there are three floors in varying degrees of refurbishment but they could be converted to a variety of uses, subject to planning permission.”
Why the Dun Cow is an important historic pub
One of a number of impressive Edwardian pubs in Sunderland The Dun Cow was re-built in 1901 and 1902, with two Dutch gables and a corner copper domed tower which houses two clocks.
The outside of the building, which was designed by architect Benjamin F Simpson, has stone carvings including the year of the work and and “RD Ltd” for Robert Deuchars of Edinburgh.
But the real historical interest lies inside, with Camra’s Michael Slaughter describing the pub’s bar back as “one of the most stunning in Britain”
“It is a splendid traceried Indo-Gothic web billowing out to form platforms on which bottles can be displayed,” he says, in the entry on the campaign’s pub heritage register. “It has three sections, divided by semi-circular projections, and is richly decorated with delicate Art Nouveau-style woodcarving and curious reliefs in plaster in some of the recesses.
“It has two rows of bevelled mirror sections, two drawers and is topped off with a ballustrade and a clock, but a letter box is an S&N addition in the 1970s to show customers the details on the till.
“There is a formidable original bar counter with strong detail such as unusual indentations at the top and pilasters all the way along the front.”