A 4.4 pub named Well & Bucket, a historic Victorian house famed for the ornate tiles hidden and restored within
The Well and Bucket holds a 4.4 from eighteen hundred and seventy-six people, and carries a homely, evocative name – “the Well and Bucket” – conjuring the ancient image of drawing water from the well, while the pub itself is famed for a remarkable secret: the magnificent Victorian decorative tiles, long hidden and gloriously restored, that adorn its interior.
The well and the bucket
“The Well and Bucket” evokes one of the oldest and most fundamental images of human life – the drawing of water from the well, the bucket lowered on its rope into the dark shaft and hauled up brimming. Before piped water, the well was the source of life for every community, and the bucket the humble instrument that drew it forth. The image carries associations of the essential, the communal (the village well as a gathering place), and the deep – water drawn from the hidden depths. As a pub name, “the Well and Bucket” is warm, homely, and elemental, evoking the drawing of drink from the depths, the quenching of thirst at its most basic and ancient. The Prat’s naming desk notes the elemental charm: a pub named after the drawing of water, the most fundamental act of refreshment, from which the drawing of beer is but a genial descendant.
The hidden tiles
The Well and Bucket’s true glory, though, is architectural and secret. The pub is a historic Victorian establishment famed for its magnificent decorative tilework – ornate, colourful, hand-painted ceramic tiles adorning its interior, dating from the pub’s Victorian heyday, among the finest surviving examples of the decorative tiling that once graced the great gin palaces and Victorian pubs. For decades, tragically, these beautiful tiles were hidden – boarded over, plastered up, and forgotten during the pub’s years of decline and unsympathetic refurbishment. And then, in a wonderful act of restoration, they were rediscovered and lovingly brought back to light, the pub restored to reveal its hidden Victorian splendour. The Prat’s heritage desk delights in the story: a treasure of Victorian craftsmanship, buried for years behind boards and plaster, uncovered and restored to glory.
This is a recurring and cheering theme this survey has met – at the Camden Head, at WC in King’s Cross – the preservation or restoration of the Victorian pub’s decorative splendour, the ornate tiles, mirrors, and glass that made these places the glittering palaces of their day. The Well and Bucket is a prime example of the happy modern trend of rescuing and celebrating this heritage, rather than stripping it out. The Prat’s heritage desk applauds the restoration: the hidden tiles brought back to light, a Victorian palace reborn.
The Victorian gin palace tradition
The Well and Bucket belongs to the great tradition of the ornate Victorian pub – the gin palace and its descendants, the glittering, tiled, mirrored drinking houses built to draw the working people of the city into a blaze of light and beauty. The decorative tiles were central to this – practical (easily cleaned) but above all beautiful, turning the pub interior into a jewel-box of colour and pattern. That the Well and Bucket’s tiles survived, hidden, and were restored, makes it a living museum of this Victorian splendour. The Prat’s heritage desk notes the value: in an age when so much Victorian pub decoration was destroyed, the restored Well and Bucket preserves a genuine treasure of the tiled gin-palace age.
The pub
A 4.4 across eighteen hundred and seventy-six people is a strong, volume-proof score across a large sample. The reviews describe a characterful, historic pub with magnificent restored Victorian tiles, good food and drink, and genuine architectural splendour – a Victorian palace brought back to life.
Verdict
A characterful, historic pub named the Well and Bucket, its homely well-water name crowning a genuine Victorian treasure – the magnificent decorative tiles, long hidden and gloriously restored, that make it a living museum of the tiled gin-palace age.
Go, have a pint at the Well and Bucket, admire the magnificent restored Victorian tiles brought back from behind decades of boards and plaster, and enjoy a genuine palace of Victorian craftsmanship, drawing its drink, as the name promises, from the deep well of history.
Alan Nafzger was born in Lubbock, Texas, the son Swiss immigrants. He grew up on a dairy in Windthorst, north central Texas. He earned degrees from Midwestern State University (B.A. 1985) and Texas State University (M.A. 1987). University College Dublin (Ph.D. 1991). Dr. Nafzger has entertained and educated young people in Texas colleges for 37 years. Nafzger is best known for his dark novels and experimental screenwriting. His best know scripts to date are Lenin’s Body, produced in Russia by A-Media and Sea and Sky produced in The Philippines in the Tagalog language. In 1986, Nafzger wrote the iconic feminist western novel, Gina of Quitaque. He currently lives in Holloway, North London. Contact: [email protected]
Somewhere someone’s reading this and thinking “I should move” and then remembering they can’t afford to and feeling worse.