Paul Clementstoasts the re-emergence of the Crown Bar in Belfast and surveys the handiwork in its much-needed makeover
For the last three months a team of 15 specialists has been diligently restoring one of Ireland's finest hostelries, the Crown Bar in Belfast. The clean-up began in June following the introduction of the smoking ban in the North's pubs in April.
Now, the reborn Crown - all gleaming and glistening with its improved air quality inside and fresh coat of paint outside - has entered a new phase in its chequered history.
Craftsmen and women specialising in woodwork, plastering, tiling and glass were involved in the summer make-over. Through it all the bar managed to keep open its distinctive heavy wooden and glass doors and the beer continued to flow; the atmosphere inside was decidedly darker as scaffolding hid the decorative windows, columns and multi-coloured tiles of the facade.
The Crown began life in 1826 as the Railway Tavern when the first train ran from Belfast to Lisburn. It was owned by Felix O'Hanlon, who sold it to Michael Flanagan. His son Patrick was a student of architecture who had travelled to Spain and Italy and returned with fancy ideas to spice up the family bar. In 1885 he asked Italian craftsmen working on churches in Ireland to moonlight on rebuilding it, and so its place in Irish architectural pub history was assured.
Persuaded by writers such as Sir John Betjeman (he once referred to it as a "many-coloured cavern"), the National Trust acquired the bar in 1978 and three years later completed a project restoring it to its perfectly preserved High Victorian Gothic state. Since then layers of smoke and dirt have built up, and the trust felt the time had come for a renewed facelift.
One of the first delights to catch the visitor's eye is the cathedral-like atmosphere of the intricately carved snugs. All around the bar architectural surprises vie for attention: the frieze-decorated oak panelling, the riot of colour on the floor tiles, and the windows, all painted and etched glass with curling designs in blue, yellow and green, depicting shells, fairies, pineapples, and fleurs-de-lys. The original intention was to shield customers from passers-by and create a hideaway for those reserved drinkers who liked to imbibe unseen.
But the pièce de résistance is the embossed ceiling with its swirling arabesques and rosettes of burnished primrose, amber and gold, now as dazzling as the day it was installed, albeit with a slightly darker varnish. As well as cleaning the smoke deposits from tobacco, the conservators also retouched the ceiling in places, filling where necessary with papier mâché. It is supported by hexagonal wooden columns with Corinthian capitals and feather ornament, with each feather individually picked out in gilt by a woodwork conservator.
TRACY JEFFREYS SPECIALISES in architectural and object conservation, concentrating on stone, terracotta and lime plaster. She spent the summer restoring the Crown's internal and external tiling.
"We conserved as much of the fabric as was humanly possible and cleaned and evaluated the integrity of each individual tile," she says. "Some tiles were removed and were replaced with matching tiles from the original design. We also grouted all the fractures and fissures, as there had been some movement through building work over the years."
The floor tiling is an attractive Victorian Monteith geometric black and white checker design. In some places, near the doors, the terracotta and blue tiles have a chevron design.
"Overall we found the floor in excellent condition, considering its age," says Jeffreys. "The floor snugs were slightly more discoloured, and in those we replaced the grouting and damaged tiles. In total, we replaced about 20 tiles in the snugs and no more than 50 on the main floor, which undulates slightly due to the wear and tear of all those feet."
One of the happiest of all developments is that the antique push-button bells in the snugs - some so small that they are known to locals as confessional boxes - are working again. Refreshments can be summoned without leaving the comfort of your black upholstered seat. This avoids pushing past other drinkers (and the risk of spillage) to fight your way through the throngs to reach the long red granite-topped bar divided by the freshly scrubbed, exotically carved timber screens.
The fine detail is what sets this place apart. The nickel plates for striking matches (now redundant since the smoking ban), the elaborate ball finials, the woodcarvings, the brocaded walls, the fine glass engravings, the mosaic glass and arched recesses behind the bar, with gold-black lettering, as well as the original distiller's mirror, have come up shining. A few years ago a visiting American wanted to buy this mirror and offered $40,000 (€29,270) for it.
In the 19th century a skilled workforce designed and built the interior. The 21st-century challenge was to remove the generic dust and dirt and restore the bar (as far as practicable) to its original pristine condition.
For Claire Magill, project conservator with the Trust, every day brought a new challenge.
"It was a groundbreaking project," she says. "The important thing was to match the skills to those of 120 years ago, and that involved a lot of remodelling. This project was four years in the making, so there was a huge amount of planning. But even with that, problems such as the colour of the tiles, or the removal of a sign, arose on a daily basis and had to be quickly sorted. One day we unearthed two gas pipes and had to call an archaeologist. He instructed me to carry out visual documentations of it and to bag all the rubble."
The small mirrors in the nine variously shaped snugs were sent to a workshop in England to be cleaned and consolidated. Each snug is individually lettered from A to I and guarded by a beast such as a crouching lion or gryphon. They were cleaned and waxed, and in some cases the ears re-carved and the gryphons' wings repaired. Inspect them closely and you will discover they hold an armorial shield inscribed with a Latin motto. One says "Audaces Fortuna Juvat" ("Fortune Favours the Bold").
During the height of the Troubles many customers braved the dangerous nights to venture into the bar when bombs were exploding around the city. Between 1970 and 1976 a total of 28 bombs exploded at the Europa Hotel across the road, damaging the Crown's windows and tiles. With its reputation for conviviality and being a sociable haunt for thespians, writers, artists and journalists, the bar battled on.
After the war, one of the bar's claims to fame was its celebrated role in Carol Reed's 1947 Kafka-esque masterpiece, Odd Man Out, featuring James Mason. The film tells the story of 24 hours in the life of an injured Republican gunman on the run. The actual bar did not feature in the film; instead a copy was made on a studio set in Buckinghamshire. It contained all the familiar features but was more spacious. Mason took refuge in the pub, which in the film is called The Four Winds.
OVER THE PAST 60 years the pub has traded on this link and has become a tourist attraction in its own right. Regulars tend to occupy the tall barstools. On cold winter days, untroubled by the flash-happy tourists brandishing their digital cameras, they enjoy the warmth of the heated footrest while mulling over the racecard for the 2.30 at Leopardstown.
Some of the white-aproned and black-bow-tied staff, who could pass for stewards on a 1950s cruise ship, have worked here for a long time. For 20 years, one of the barmen, Michael Cosgrove, has rubbed shoulders not just with antiquity, but with the rich and famous.
"Not that I'm a name-dropper," he laughs, "but we get them all in here: Brad Pitt, Jimmy Nesbitt, Charles Lawson, Phil Coulter, Alex Higgins, Eric Sykes, Ruby Wax and Paddy Reilly. Some of them were performing at the Grand Opera House further along Great Victoria Street. A few years ago, Belinda Carlisle was also a visitor. Her link with the bar is that her father-in-law was James Mason. Some of the secretaries of state, such as Patrick Mayhew and more recently John Reid (who came with his mother and wife), have dropped in and loved it. The tourists, though, are astonished. They can't believe that such a place could still exist, as they've never seen anything quite like it."
With its newfound sparkle, but still retaining its old reflective glow of gaslight, the bar now exudes a more mellow atmosphere than ever. It is an ostentatious box of delights, a survivor that has always provided a friendly welcome for the visitor.
In these days of brightly lit, homogenised superpubs, with their thick carpets, plasma screens, chrome, perspex and incessant cacophony of music, it is remarkable to see the patina of the years being conserved within the walls of the Crown Liquor Saloon (to give it its full title). Exuberant and flamboyant, the Crown is ageless, timeless and classless - some would say even priceless.
Paul Clements is a writer and tutor. From Oct 1, he will be tutoring a weekly evening class in travel writing at the Irish Writers' Centre in Parnell Square, Dublin