From the https://www.croydonadvertiser.co.uk By Croydon Advertiser, 16 April 2018.

Popular Crystal Palace pub to be restored to former glory with new B&B venture.

Extra floors are being added to the Westow House pub.

Work is underway to restore a historic Crystal Palace pub to its former glory before the Second World War.

Westow House is undergoing a massive expansion to capitalise on the growing popularity of the south London area.

An extra two floors are being added to the popular pub to create space for a large function room and also rooms for a bed and breakfast venture to be launched on the site.

The team at Antic Pubs, which run Westow House, has been inspired to make changes in an effort to restore the pub to how it looked before being damaged during the Second World War.

Loredana Campisi-Green, speaking on behalf of Antic Pubs about the project, said: "Westow House will become a four-storey building to better reflect that which was originally built, but damaged sometime during the Second World War.

“It'll feature a new function room and boutique B&B rooms for the good folk of Crystal Palace.

“Crystal Palace is a great place to explore and wonderfully rich in history.

“Hopefully with the increased availability of short-stay rooms, we hope to see not only a rise in longer visits to this splendid part of the city, but to local trade too.

“The front elevation plans you will see are sympathetic to the original building height and design.”

Permission has been granted to carry out the work and scaffolding is already up around the pub, on the corner of Westow Hill and Crystal Palace Parade.

The building – formerly known as the “White Swan” and the "Bluebottle" – was once taller than how it now stands.

Antic Pubs hope once complete the changes will help to “boost local trade” in the area, with the new B&B aiming to get more people to visit Crystal Palace.

The Westow House will soon be a towering four storeys

Antic also operate Walker Briggs on the same street as Westow House, with plans for a third venture in the area.

The trendy chain wants to convert the disused Plumbase shop on Westow Hill into a bar which would serve alcohol, soft drinks as well as hot and cold food.

If planning permission is granted, the new venue will be called "Cambridge Coopers" and will serve coffee in the morning before "morphing" into a "lively" meeting place in the evening, according to a planning statement submitted by Antic.

Before it became a Plumbase in the 1990s, the 1930s building had been home to a Coopers store - hence the proposed name.