Swan upmanship

Once an "olde worlde" pub with repro beams, purple wallpaper and patterned orange carpet, the Swan at West Malling in Kent has been transformed into a sophisticated, city-style brasserie and café-bar.

At the entrance is a sleek bar made of oak with charcoal Venetian tiles and a stainless-steel top. Beyond is the 30-seat café-bar and 35-seat brasserie decorated in neutral colours, with light oak floors and mismatched furniture in a mix of oak, slate, aluminium and wicker. Upstairs there are also a cocktail bar, a library and a function room.

"We wanted to bring some London style into the provinces," explains Christopher Wright, who owns the Swan with Peter Cornwell through their company, Fishbone. "West Malling is a village, but it's nota sleepy backwater - there's a 35-minuterail link to London and the Kings Hill Business Park has brought lots of head offices here."

Fishbone bought the Swan - originally a 16th-century inn - for £365,000 twoyears ago, then spent nearly twice as much doing it up.

Wright estimates they saved 50% by directly employing contractors and controlling the project themselves. However, they found that using interior designer Tilney Shane saved them from making costly mistakes when changing the ground floor from a maze of small dark rooms into a more open space.

"We would have put the bar at the back, but they told us to put it at the front where it would draw people in and be used as a meeting point for customers. And they stopped us from putting the loos in the basement, which would have led to customers walking across the trading space and also given us huge plumbing problems.

"Getting expert advice on layout was essential."