Volunteer Hotel, Sale

The Volunteer is included as a pub with an interior of some regional historic interest for its oak-panelled former billiard room upstairs.

The Volunteer Hotel was constructed of red brick of Neo-Jacobean style in 1897 for Chesters Brewery of Ardwick and opened in 1898, replacing an earlier public house, as well as the adjacent cottage. It is of five bays, with gables to bays one, three and five increasing in size; each has a design which incorporates applied timber framing and barge boards carved with the national flowers of Ireland (shamrocks), Scotland (the thistle) and England (the rose). There is a lantern tower with Gothic windows and a lead dome to bay two. A stone porch sits to bay four with a triangulated pediment displaying the name of the pub and the date. Once multi-roomed, it was opened up into one large room served by a single bar in the later part of the last century - the ceiling plaster indicates the original layout. The mosaic floor is now covered over but is visible at the top of the cellar steps. The main entrance porch incorporates Art-Nouveau style dado tiling, although this has been painted over in brown. To the rear of the bar is the original wooden staircase to the upper floors with substantial square newels, panel balustrading and tiling to the wall, although painted over.

The splendid high ceilinged former billiard room has full height wood panelling to all walls, with a colourful painted plaster frieze above depicting mythical creatures around three sides. The ceiling is plastered with a geometrical pattern, surrounding the rectangular skylight with wooden geometric tracery and stained glass depicting foliage and fish-scale patterns. A fine fielded panelled fireplace sits to the north wall; this incorporates a mirror flanked by Art-Nouveau wooden reliefs, and a marble surround and tiles painted with foliage and butterflies. The grate is original. On the opposite wall there is a recessed niche housing the radiator. There is a wooden window seat to the east. The room is used as a function room and by the local Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes. There are two colourful stained and leaded glass windows in the former billiard room and one at the top of the staircase.