Bar Fontaine springs forth

Your Executive has been dealing with comments and complaints from near neighbours and Society members who regularly pass along St Margaret's Street about the condition of Bar Fontaine. Formally the premises ofGreen and Hatfield, antique dealers until 1980 when Mr Green retired, it became Falstaff, Prince of Orange and operated as a bar and nightclub until 1996. The building has slowly deteriorated over the past twenty years.

We are pleased to see therefore that a planning application has been submitted to the Borough Council to convert the building into twelve flats. The proposal respects the mock Tudor style of John Sherman, the architect whose offices were in Northgate Street, who added false front elevations to both St Margaret's Plain and Old Foundry Road in the early 1930s.

The changes, proposed by architects Poole and Pattle, will be hardly noticeable other than that the building will become much more presentable. Air-conditioning units and other roofline clutter will be removed and additional dormer windows installed.