The pub won the Refurbishment and Conservation categories in the awards run by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA).
The Dun Cow is a Grade II-listed building, built as a gin palace in 1901, which has been renovated as part of a new cultural quarter for Sunderland.
Its new owner, the Music, Arts and Culture (MAC) Trust, brought in Camerons Brewery to reopen the pub as one of its managed houses. The building’s Edwardian features have been conserved as part of a £300,000 restoration.
CAMRA explained that the pub's sandstone exterior has been treated in an "exemplary manner", while the interior – with its outstanding woodwork, including the ornate backbar, plaster ceiling and stained and etched glass – has been "painstakingly returned to its Edwardian magnificence".
Other winners included Wetherspoons pub The Admiral Collingwood, on the seafront of Ilfracombe, Devon; The Bevy in Bevendean, Brighton and The Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, Keswick, Cumbria.
Transformation
The Chief Justice of the Common Pleas won after transforming the former Keswick’s Magistrates Court and Police Station which was empty for many years.
Another Wetherspoons pub, The Admiral Collingwood, on the seafront of Ilfracombe, took the New Build Award.
Harrison Ince Architects devised the modern building featuring a glass dome, and new artworks include a steel sculpture of a wave breaking.
The Joe Goodwin award went to The Bevy in Bevendean, Brighton. The 1930s pub in the middle of a Brighton council estate faced closure and conversion or demolition.
Locals reinvented ‘The Bevy’, raising funds and carrying out much of the refurbishment work.
Author of the Judges Report, Professor Steven Parissien, said: “CAMRA has been at the forefront of initiatives to protect our best pubs from demolition or inappropriate conversion. Now the latest Pub Design Award winners show that there’s lots of life left in this much-loved national treasure.
“These awards boast the most diverse and inspirational range of pub buildings we’ve judged in the history of the competition.
“All the winners show that good, sympathetic design makes commercial as well as aesthetic sense. They also demonstrate how fabulous pubs can be used as the engines of regeneration for communities and causes.
“They remind us that the British pub is so much more than somewhere to have a pint: it is the beating heart of our neighbourhood, a place that defines our identity and locality, an agent for relaxation, renewal and revitalisation.”
The awards were in association with Historic England and the Victorian Society.
Winners list:
- Refurbishment Award: The Dun Cow, Sunderland
- Architects: T.J. Design, Billingham, Cleveland
- CAMRA/Historic England Conservation Award: The Dun Cow, Sunderland
- Architects: T.J. Design, Billingham, Cleveland
- Conversion to Pub Use: The Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, Keswick
- Architects: Harrison Ince, Manchester
- New Build Award: The Admiral Collingwood, Ilfracombe
- Architects: Harrison Ince, Manchester
- Joe Goodwin Award: The Bevy, Bevendean, Brighton
- Architect: ABIR Architects, Hove