CAMRA awards honour top pub design

June 15, 2007: The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) is looking for exceptionally designed pubs where work was completed last year to be nominated for a national honour.

CAMRA's Pub Design Awards, in association with the English Heritage and the Victorian Society, were launched in 1983 to recognise pubs of innovative and imaginative design. The awards celebrate sympathetic preservation and restoration of remarkable historical interest interiors, as well as applauding new contemporary builds.

Owen Morris, CAMRA's press officer, said: “Last year we had some beautiful examples of pubs that had worked hard to restore and preserve their unique character. However, we had no worthy entries for the new build category. We at CAMRA cannot believe that there are no pubs built in the last year that exhibit true imagination.

“We are urging breweries, pub companies, architects and members of the public to nominate their favourite pubs that have had work completed in 2006 and ensure they receive the credit they deserve.”

The Pub Design Awards are split into four categories:

1. New build pub
This category is for entirely new built pubs. The judges look for a number of details. The pub might reflect pubs of the past, but without becoming a mere pastiche of Edwardian, Victorian or even Georgian artefacts. Or it could be completely modern, using materials of the 20th or 21st century.

2. Conversion to pub use
This is where an existing building is converted to pub use. Pubs are judged on the taste and restraint used on both the outside and inside of the pub.

3. Refurbished pub
Refurbishment can range from a complete gutting to replace what was crass and in bad taste with something far better to an enhancement of what was originally there. Refurbishment should suit the individual pub and not be an excuse to use uniform furnishings to brand the pub with brewery or pub company's image.

4. CAMRA / English Heritage Conservation award
This award, sponsored by English Heritage, is usually given for work on a pub which conserves what is good in the pub, makes good some of the crass refurbishment efforts of the past, and ensures that the fabric of the place will survive for further generations of pubgoers and drinkers to enjoy.

In addition, the Joe Goodwin Award — named after late CAMRA chair Joe Goodwin — is reserved for outstanding refurbished street-corner locals.

If you are pub owner, pub designer, pub landlord or pubgoer and think you know a pub worthy of one of these awards then contact Owen Morris at CAMRA HQ on 01727 867443 or by e-mail at owen.morris@camra.org.uk for an entry form and explanatory notes. The closing date for entries is July 31.

For pictures of previous winners, visit www.camra.org.uk/pdaphotos