The World's Loneliest Chair

A single timber chair sits in the middle of an otherwise empty room at the Terminus Hotel, the chair facing a window that looks out onto the ivy-covered eastern wall of the building. The chair is hardwood, dark-stained, the seat upholstered in a faded green vinyl that has cracked in patches. One of the legs is shorter than the others; a small wooden wedge has been placed under it on the floor. The room around the chair is bare timber boards, with the walls painted in the institutional cream of the upstairs accommodation. The window admits the late-afternoon light from the John Street side. The chair appears to have been placed deliberately, but by whom and when is not recorded.

The Terminus closed in 1983 when the McElwaine family ended its tenure. Susan and Isaac Wakil bought the building and licence as a long-term investment, and held it closed for 33 years. The upstairs rooms were emptied or partially emptied over that time. Some rooms were stripped of all furniture; others retained scattered pieces. The chair in this photograph is one of the surviving pieces, sitting in a room that was otherwise cleared. Brett photographed the building in 2016, the year the Wakils sold it on. The chair has presumably been removed since, along with the rest of the residue of the pub's pre-restoration interior.