Pub & Hospitality Flooring
Pub floors — period feel, modern wear.
Reclaimed and distressed boards for country pubs, restored originals for coaching inns, beer- and food-tolerant finishes throughout. Phased around trading days so the doors stay open through the install.
Sussex · Hampshire · Surrey · phased installs · listed-building consent liaison · £5M public liability
29
years on the tools
£5M
public liability cover
5.0
★ · 215 reviews
About pub, bar & inn flooring
A pub floor isn't a fit-out floor — and the room can tell.
Drop a cookie-cutter engineered oak into a 16th-century coaching inn and the room loses something it can't get back. The taproom of a country pub, the snug of a village inn, the slate-and-timber threshold of a gastropub — these spaces read warm because their materials have weight and history. A floor that's brand new and finished in a uniform satin lacquer reads office, not pub. The patrons notice even if they can't quite say why, and the brewery surveyor walks in on the handover wishing the spec had gone differently. Hospitality contractors who build great office reception floors don't always know that.
We've been laying timber floors across Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire since 1997, and a growing share of the work is in pubs, inns and gastropub conversions. Some are restoration-first — the originals are sound under the carpet and a sand-and-seal will recover decades of character. Some are reclaimed-board fit-outs where the building is too old or too altered to find original timber. Some are a mix — keep the taproom, replace the snug, blend the threshold. Either way, the spec is led by the room, not by a price book. Reclaimed French oak barn boards, antique pine, English elm. Bona commercial lacquer or two-pack PU where the wear demands it. Listed-building consent liaison with the conservation officer where the building is graded. A small family team that turns up for the survey, runs the install, and answers the phone on the defect call twelve months later.
Restore-first if the originals are sound — sand, fill, seal, save the character
Reclaimed French oak, English elm and antique pine for new pub fit-outs
Beer, food and footfall-tolerant finishes — Bona commercial lacquer or 2-pack PU on the bar runs
Phased install around trading days — Mon–Wed closure or overnight shifts
Listed-building consent liaison — methodology statements written alongside the conservation officer
12-month defect liability — single point of contact post-handover
Most common
Country Pub
Traditional village pubs and country freehouses where the floor needs to read as if it's been there a century — even when it's new. Reclaimed French oak barn boards or antique pine, hand-finished in a hardwax oil with a slip-rated overcoat on the bar run, distressed at the edges to disappear into the room. Where the original boards are sound under the carpet, we sand-and-seal first and only replace what's beyond saving. Phased across the venue's quietest trading days — typically Monday-to-Wednesday in the country-pub world.
Heritage
Coaching Inn
Listed coaching inns and historic taprooms where the building is graded and the floor methodology has to clear the conservation officer before a sander touches a board. We'll lift the carpet, document what's underneath, propose a restore-or-replace approach with sample boards, and run the consent letter ourselves where the brewery or freeholder hasn't already done it. Original boards often go back in after sand-fill-and-seal — period-appropriate hardwax oil, hand-applied. Missing boards matched from architectural-salvage stock.
Kitchen-led
Gastropub
Open-plan gastropubs where the kitchen pass, bar and dining tables share a sightline and the floor has to read as one material through three wear classes. We'll specify the species and tone for cohesion, then build the finish differently across the zones — two-pack PU on the pass-to-bar run, hardwax oil through the dining room, R10 slip rating at the bar lip. Character-grade oak in a 190mm board reads warm without competing with the rest of the room. Phased install so the dining service isn't interrupted.
Late-night wear
Wine Bar & Micropub
Wine bars and micropubs concentrate the wear on the smallest footprint — bar service, standing-room, late hours, and a clientele that doesn't always treat the floor gently. Deep-toned engineered oak or fumed walnut, sealed in two-pack polyurethane on the exposed runs, with an aggregate-bearing hardwax oil overcoat where the bar-side slip rating needs to hit R10. Brass strip inlay or a herringbone band can add the character without losing the durability — see our parquet work for the geometry we run most often.
Brewery-led
Brewery Tap Room
Tap rooms and brewery-led venues where the brief is industrial-warm — exposed brick, scaffold-board bars, edison-bulb lighting — and the floor needs to belong in the room. Wide-plank antique pine, restored pub boards lifted from elsewhere and re-laid, or a robust engineered oak in a smoked tone. Bona commercial lacquer on the keg-to-bar run, hardwax oil through the seating zones. Where the building is owned by the brewery, we'll work directly with their estates team and a portfolio surveyor through the spec and handover.
How we run a pub fit-out
From survey to twelve-month defect call.
Pubs reward process discipline as much as any sector — the trading dates can't move, the brewery surveyor has a view, and the conservation officer (if there is one) has the final word. Our rhythm is built around that reality.
-
Survey with the landlord and the freeholder
Site visit at a quiet time so the floor can actually be inspected — typically a weekday afternoon. We'll lift a section of the existing covering where it's safe to do so, take Tramex moisture readings, and walk the building with the landlord and (where relevant) the brewery surveyor or freeholder's portfolio team. Listed-building grade noted, conservation requirements scoped. Insurance certificates and RAMS template supplied at this visit.
-
Restore-or-replace decision
Where original boards exist under the carpet, we'll honestly tell you whether they're worth saving. Sometimes the answer is restore — sand, fill, seal, three decades of character preserved at half the cost of a re-lay. Sometimes it's replace because the boards are split, woodworm-damaged or never that good to begin with. Sometimes it's blend — keep the taproom, replace the snug, match the threshold. Recommendation in writing, no pressure either way.
-
Consent liaison (listed buildings)
Where the building is graded, we'll write the methodology statement that goes to the conservation officer and work alongside them through the application — specifying what we're keeping, what we're replacing, where the salvage stock is coming from, and which finishes and methods are reversible. We can advise on the reversible options so the statement reads the way the conservation officer needs it to, and we aim to have consent confirmed before any tools come on-site.
-
Phased install around trading days
Country pubs typically close Monday to Wednesday — we run the install in that window where it's possible. Where it isn't, we phase across overnight shifts: 11pm-to-6am working, sweep and protect for service, clean hand-back the morning of every trading day. Dust isolation with dust-extracted tooling so the kitchen pass doesn't lose a service. PPE and noise discipline to the venue's licence conditions and any close-of-residence timings.
-
Finish & cure
Three-pass sand on solid and parquet jobs, then your specified finish — a Bona lacquer or its anti-slip variant on the bar and high-wear runs, period-appropriate hardwax oil through the snugs and dining rooms, two-pack PU on the most exposed zones. Cure schedule shared with the landlord so the trading calendar isn't a guess. For reclaimed-board jobs we'll usually run an extra finish coat — they drink the first one.
-
Handover & 12-month defect liability
Final walkthrough with the landlord. QA pack delivered — material certificates, moisture logs, finish data sheets, photographic record, and for listed-building work, the consent correspondence. Cleaning regime card lists which products are safe for your sealer chemistry (the wrong supermarket-bottle product is the most common cause of premature wear we ever attend). Defect liability runs twelve months from practical completion.
Recent pub, bar & inn flooring work
A few of our pub, bar & inn flooring projects.
Real homes where this work has just gone in — across Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire.
Midhurst area, GU29
Warm aged oak plank floor
Wide oak planks in a warm mid-brown tone, lightly distressed and finished in a low-sheen oil that suits a relaxed country room — run up to a woodburner set on its stone hearth. The kind of hard-wearing, characterful floor we’d lay through a venue in the Midhurst area.
West Sussex, PO19
Warm oak herringbone hall floor
Warm mid-brown oak herringbone run across a grand panelled hall, sweeping round towards a timber staircase and balustrade — close-laid blocks in a soft low-sheen finish that reads quietly grand. The kind of herringbone floor we’d lay for a heritage venue in West Sussex.
Petworth area, GU28
Honey oak boards, kitchen-diner
Wide oak planks in a warm honey-brown tone, full of knot and grain character and finished in a low-sheen oil, run through a bright country kitchen-diner under the sash windows. The kind of relaxed, hard-wearing floor we’d lay for a venue in the Petworth area.
Pub, Bar & Inn Flooring across the region
Pub, Bar & Inn Flooring from Chichester to Emsworth.
Pub, Bar & Inn Flooring is the bread and butter of the workshop. You’ll see our van rolling out of Bognor Regis most weeks toward Chichester, Haslemere, Petersfield, Midhurst, Arundel, Petworth and Emsworth — the postcodes across Sussex, Surrey & Hampshire where pub, bar & inn flooring keeps the diary full. Reclaimed boards, restored originals and beer-tolerant finishes for country pubs, coaching inns and gastropubs — phased around trading days.
Whether the brief is a Georgian terrace in Chichester, a 1930s semi out near Haslemere, or a converted barn off the lanes around Emsworth, the spec and the standard don’t shift. Darren surveys on-site, sample boards stay with you for a fortnight under your own lighting, and the install runs in a single solid stretch — no day-trip back-and-forth, no chain of phone numbers, flat-rate quotes by the job not the mile. Family team since 1997, covering Sussex, Surrey & Hampshire from the same coastal base.
“Fabulous experience with Forrestal Flooring with laying new timber floors and restoring old timber floors previously laid.”
Read this on Google
Frequently asked
Questions about pub, bar & inn flooring.
Can you work in a pub without us shutting completely?
Yes — most of our pub work is phased so the venue keeps trading at least three or four days a week. Country pubs that close Monday to Wednesday give us the cleanest window; for venues open seven days, we phase across overnight shifts and clean hand-back the morning of every trading day. Where one zone (snug, restaurant, function room) can be closed without losing the day's cover, we'll concentrate the work there and leave the rest serving. Programme dates agreed at tender, not promised and apologised for.
Will the finishes survive beer spills and commercial cleaning?
If the chemistry is matched to the floor, yes — for many years. Beer on its own won't damage a properly-sealed timber floor; what causes the damage is the cleaning routine that follows. We supply a cleaning regime card on handover listing the specific products that are safe for the sealer system on your floor — for most pub installations, Bona Pro Cleaner is our default. We'll happily brief your FoH and KP teams in person at handover. Most regime damage we ever attend is from off-the-shelf supermarket products being used in error in the first month.
Do you do restoration as well as new installs?
Both — and we'll honestly recommend restoration where the originals are worth saving. We've sanded back Victorian pine taprooms that had thirty years of carpet glue on them and got the patina back; we've also re-laid coaching-inn snugs where the boards were too far gone. The restore-or-replace conversation is the first one we have on site after the survey, with the recommendation in writing. There's no upsell — restoring a sound original floor is often half the cost of replacing it.
What about listed-building consent?
We write the methodology statement that goes to the conservation officer ourselves — specifying what we're keeping, what we're replacing, where the salvage stock is coming from, and which finishes and methods are reversible. We can advise on which reversible options suit a graded building so the statement is right first time, and we aim to have consent confirmed before any tools come on-site. We work alongside conservation officers across Chichester, Arundel, Midhurst and Petworth, and we'll keep you updated as the application progresses. Where the building is graded and the brewery hasn't already submitted the application, we'll write that too — there's no extra charge for the paperwork.
What slip rating can you offer for the bar area?
R10 is available as standard on both lacquer and hardwax oil systems — a Bona anti-slip lacquer on the lacquer side, an aggregate-bearing hardwax oil overcoat on the oil side. We'll typically specify R10 on the bar lip, the keg-to-bar run, and the entry threshold, with a standard satin finish through the snugs and dining zones. Higher ratings (R11/R12) are available where the licence or the cellar-trap geometry requires it — that conversation belongs in the tender, not on day one.
Can you source reclaimed boards that match an existing pub interior?
Yes — reclaimed French oak barn boards, antique English pine, and salvaged elm are sourced through long-standing yard relationships across the south of England. We'll bring a sample stack to site at the survey so you can see the patina range and pick the closest match to whatever's already in the room. Lead times on reclaimed stock are longer than on engineered (typically 3–6 weeks) — we'll be honest at tender about which combinations need stock-on-water and which we can mobilise quickly.
Do you work with breweries directly or only with landlords?
Both — comfortably. We've worked with brewery estates teams across Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire (we'll respond on a like-for-like spec where the portfolio surveyor has set one), and we work directly with independent freehouse landlords (where we'll act as the design lead and walk you through species, finish and programme decisions ourselves). Either model is fine — tell us at first contact and we'll shape the engagement to suit.
What lead time should we plan around?
From a confirmed PO and the spec signed off, we'll usually mobilise within 3–6 weeks for a standard pub fit-out — longer if the spec needs reclaimed timber on a specific patina, shorter if engineered stock is in hand. Listed-building consent typically adds 4–6 weeks before the install can start, so we'll suggest you start the consent application at first contact rather than at PO. Where you're tied to a hard reopening date, we'll re-shape the programme around the immovable dates rather than promise something we can't hold.
Ready to start?
Talk to Darren direct
07973 658149
Mon–Fri, 8am–6pm
Get a free survey for your pub, bar & inn flooring.
Darren will visit, measure up and walk you through species, finishes and lead times. No pressure, no hard sell — just specialist advice.
