Royal Victoria Hotel, Retaining Wall And Approach Ramp

The Royal Victoria Hotel, with its associated retaining wall and approach ramp, is a former station hotel built in 1861 and significantly altered in the late 19th century, with restoration work undertaken around 1990. The design is by ME Hadfield. The hotel is constructed of brick with painted ashlar dressings, featuring hipped artificial slate roofs and seven coped rusticated ridge stacks. A retaining wall and the approach ramp are built of coursed squared stone with ashlar dressings.

The hotel has a plinth, first floor band, third floor sillband, and modillion eaves. It is four storeys high with a nine-window range. Most windows are plain sashes, with those on the ground floor being segment-headed and those on the third floor smaller. A projecting central entrance bay is topped with a gable containing a segmental pediment and roundel, and features a first-floor window with a segmental pediment and keystone. The round-arched doorway has a small triangular pediment. Recessed bays flank the entrance, each with two windows per floor; the ground floor windows have keystones. Projecting hipped bays are located on either side, also with two windows on each floor, the first-floor windows having segmental pediments and projecting surrounds. A canted bay window with three sashes is located on the ground floor of the right wing. The left return features a recessed centre. The right wing presents three windows on each floor with projecting surrounds. The left wing, four storeys high, has a single central window on the upper floors and three on the ground floor.

The interior includes an entrance hall flanked by a reception desk and lounge, featuring enriched cornices, arches, and a panelled ceiling. The lobby incorporates plaster wall panels divided by Ionic pilasters and a coved reticulated ceiling with a boss. The main lounge has similar panelling and pilasters, a heavily enriched modillion cornice, and a reticulated coved ceiling with a rooflight. An adjoining room is in a similar style, with a three-bay reticulated ceiling containing roundels.

External features include cast-iron spiked railings. The retaining wall has a string course, chamfered coping, pilaster buttresses, and a railing at the side of the hotel. The approach ramp, with a similar design, is carried on ten round arches.