1879 – Beehive Coffee Tavern, Streatham, London

Perspective view & ground plan from The Building News, July 4th 1879. “Is just being completed and is to be formally opened in a few days by the Lord Chancellor. The architects have succeeded in giving to the building the aspect of a quiet old red-brick tavern. It has a long and quaint bar window above which is a wooden balcony approached from the club-room on the first-floor ; on the same floor is a reading-room and a bagatelleroom. Behind the bar is a bar-parlour. The basement is used for storing grocery and other heavy provisions from which a lift carries them to a kitchen, which is at the top of the house ; an arrangement that finds favour in modem eating-houses. A smaller lift is provided for conveying speedily chops or other light comestibles. On the second-floor are arranged dormitories to be let as lodgings to working men. At the back of this house is a large hall with separate approaches, and a retiring room for lecturers. The room is lighted by a row of dormers in the roof, and at night by sunburners. A complete scheme of heating and ventilating is provided. The contract for the whole building was £3,838.”

The Coffee house was built by the temperance movement, in an attempt to keep workers from the neighbouring pub. When the coffee movement collapsed, the building became a part of a nearby factory, and now offices.

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