Robin Hood & Little John Stables
New BCFA member Revivalist have shared with us one of their latest projects for Lincoln Green Brewery. The Robin Hood & Little John is a popular real ale pub in Nottingham that has won CAMRA’s National Cider Pub of the Year and Nottingham Pub of the Year.
It is part of Everard’s Brewery ‘Project William’, a scheme designed to promote independent real ale brewers and pubs by offering them excellent deals on premises and extensive support normally only enjoyed in big companies. The pub suffered from two problems, a lack of decent quality outside seating and no function room or area for private events and the stables were identified as an area that could potentially solve both problems.
See the before pictures below:
The room was cleared with any usable furniture being sent for restoration at the workshops. Some new furniture was bought as well as vintage items and a fetching run of fixed seating. The scheme was topped off with an up-cycled light fitting from Revivalist‘s warehouse. The Stables can now be used as part of the pub itself, a function room for birthdays or meetings or even a separate micro-pub with a guest brewer taking over the bar for an agreed time. This simple project has created an incredibly flexible space with some simple decorative work and imaginative use of furniture and lighting.
Interview with Anthony Hughes – MD, Lincoln Green Brewery and Pubs
“We started brewing beer in 2012 and now have four pubs, three with Everard’s superb Project William and one with Star Pubs. Like many people, we believe that the Victorian era was a golden time for pubs with some stunning venues being dedicated to the consumption beer. Pub interior design really lost its way in the 70’s and 80’s and as an industry we’ve a lot to put right, that doesn’t mean we need to drink in a venerated museum environment though. We like to create authentic pub interiors using a combination of vintage items, refurbishing existing pub tables and chairs and then buying some new stock on top. I source genuine period bric-a-brac but also buy a good reproduction pieces, the idea is to keep it traditional but add and modern ideas where we think they benefit the pub.
We first came across Revivalist when they supplied a mix of vintage furniture and bric-a-brac for the refurbishment of the Station Hotel in Hucknall, we were very impressed with their ‘stuff’ and their service and we asked them in again at the Poet & Castle in Codnor, Derbyshire. By then they’d become more than just a furniture supplier, they do have lots of fantastic stock but what I really like about them that I can talk to them about my vision and they will bring that to life whilst adding their own ideas.
When it came to the project at Robin Hood & Little John in Nottingham we approached them again. The pub is tight for exterior space and lacks a function room so we had an idea to kill two birds. There was an old stable in the yard that had become the usual home to old chairs and we decided to clear it out and turn it into a micro-pub within a pub. We worked with Revivalist using bespoke fixed seating, vintage furniture and a feature upcycled light fitting. We actually kept and re-upholstered the old chairs we found in there before fitting a bar for 4 casks and the result is a fantastic little pub space.
We open it as a ‘guest beer tap room’ and also have plans to hand the whole micro-pub over to other brewers for a weekend.
In the near future we’ll be working on outdoor spaces at our other sites and we’re looking to do something different from the normal beer garden, we now know just the people to help us.”
– Anthony Hughes