Prince Of Wales Hotel Including Area Railings

Prince of Wales Hotel including area railings

Hotel built in 1876–7, probably enlarged at an early date, and later altered. Designed by E Kenrick. The building is constructed of red brick in Flemish bond with sandstone dressings, now painted white, and has a slate mansard roof. It is built in the Domestic Gothic style.

The hotel is L-shaped on a corner site with rear wings extending from the main range. The exterior comprises three storeys plus basements and attics, arranged in a bipartite composition of three and five bays. The three-bay portion may be an addition of 1912 by E W Johnson.

The five-bay portion is nearly symmetrical with the centre and outer bays projecting forward. The centre bay is gabled while the outer bays have mansard attics with gabled dormers. String courses, sill bands, and bracketed plastered eaves coving run across the facade. The basement area is protected by bowed Art Nouveau-style wrought-iron railings with panels of floral motifs, extending the full width of the range.

The centre bay features a prominent cast-iron and glass porte cochere, either added or altered, protecting an entrance with Gothic colonettes having stiff-leaf capitals under a two-centred arch. Flanking painted stone pinnacles stand above the porte cochere. A canted bay window rises through the first and second floors, and a broad attic gable with oversailing ornamental arched plaster-and-timber framing contains a pair of two-centred arched windows.

The outer bays contain wide three-storey canted bay windows and mansard attics with gabled dormers in matching style. All windows are sashed with columnar mullions, carved imposts, and stilted heads (segmental at ground and second floor, segmental-pointed at first floor) with painted stone tympani bearing incised decoration.

The intermediate bays have canted oriels at ground floor, probably inserted, paired segmental-headed sashes at first floor with similarly enriched imposts and tympani, and round-headed sashes at second floor under two-centred arches, with flat-roofed dormers that have been altered or inserted. Beneath each first-floor window is an oblong panel with moulded surround containing mosaic enrichment, now painted black.

The three-bay portion to the left has a recessed centre flanked by gabled outer bays with three-storey canted bay windows, executed in generally similar style with comparable detailing.

The right-hand return wall to Portland Street is a long fourteen-window range beginning with a semicircular bay rising to an attic turret with a gabled dormer and steeply pitched conical roof. Beyond this are a gabled three-storey canted bay and a semicircular bay window.

Interior principal features are a pair of ballrooms projected from the rear of the main range on different levels, now interconnected by a curved double staircase situated in the former orchestra stage of the main ballroom.

The main ballroom has massive sliding doors with bevel-edged plate glass, galleries on two sides with foliated cast-iron balustrades, and a curved staircase at each end. It contains a very large stained glass skylight with moulded plaster surround and a huge circular glass lantern suspended from the centre. The room formerly had Ionic pilasters and a moulded plaster cornice.

The second ballroom, adjoining on a higher level to the south, has fluted Ionic pilasters and a similar skylight.

The hotel forms a group with associated boundary walls and gate piers.