Grail Court Hotel and outbuildings

Grail Court Hotel and Outbuildings

A hotel with adjoining outbuildings dating to the 1850s, incorporating adjacent former houses and shops, with later alterations.

The hotel is constructed of brick with stucco render to the front elevations. Most windows are timber sashes, some of which are later replacements. The timber roof structures are covered in slate.

The main hotel is three storeys in height, while the incorporated former houses are two storeys with an attic. The building has a double-depth plan with a corner entrance. The ground floor contains bar serveries, dining rooms and a kitchen to the rear, extending into the former shops which have been opened out to the rear. Two back stairs serve the rear, and the upper floors contain corridors with hotel rooms.

The principal elevations face Station Street and Guild Street, meeting at a main corner entrance. Both elevations are rendered with banding and lined eaves. The angled doorway features a door case with pediment on consoles, a blocked rectangular fanlight, and a four-panelled divided door. Above the door are blind openings on each floor. Facing Station Street are two sash windows to the ground and first floors (those to the right are later twentieth-century tripartite sashes) with three-over-three sashes to the second floor. To the right is a four-windowed wing representing the former houses, with five hipped dormers to the roof and projecting former shopfronts under a flat roof at ground floor. The shopfronts, which have been extended by half a bay westward across the hotel, contain three window openings with heavy mullions and transoms and a modern divided door.

The return side to Guild Street has three sashes to each floor. Attached to the left, by an entrance to the rear courtyard, is a two-storey bay with a sash to each floor under flat arches and a hipped roof. Mid to late twentieth-century metal railings line the frontage either side of the main hotel entrance. The rear is mainly plain brick over a range of heights, with brick extensions to the left and a timber verandah over a back door to the right. Brick stacks rise to the roofs.

The interior features a panelled hotel reception hall with a timber desk and open well staircase with wreathed handrail, stick balusters and decorative string. Doors from the hall lead to two principal dining areas. One is fitted out with pine panelling on an Arthurian theme including a 'round table' feature fitted as a ceiling rose. A mid-twentieth-century bar servery with mirrored bar back and shelving serves the rear of this restaurant. The adjacent dining area is decorated in the Georgian style with 'plastered' wall alcoves and suspended ceilings. Nineteenth-century decorative treatments may remain concealed behind later insertions. The ground floor behind the Station Street shopfronts contains late twentieth-century serveries, kitchens, facilities and open areas. The first and second floors contain hotel rooms and corridors with fireplaces that are probably early twentieth century or later. Some late nineteenth-century joinery survives, including cupboards, door architraves, four-panelled doors and skirting boards. The two sets of back staircases are plain with stick balusters. The roof structure is partly exposed to some attic rooms in the former houses and appears unaltered where inspected.

In the north-west corner of the yard stand adjoining brick buildings of mid-nineteenth-century date. A two-storey coach house is constructed on a north-south orientation along the edge of Guild Street. Attached to its north-east end and forming an L-plan is a single-storey outbuilding with wide timber doors across the main elevation and a hipped roof. Some nineteenth-century roof structure remains but the roof is mainly a late twentieth-century replacement, and there is modern subdivision within the ground floor area.

The two-storey coach house has an eight-window range facing the yard with alternating casement and door openings to the ground floor under segmental brick arches and alternating casements and sashes to the first floor under segmental or flat heads. The sash openings may be modified from loading doors, and there is a modern door at the right end above an external metal staircase. A number of openings on the elevation are sealed in brick and there are other areas of disturbed brick. The alterations and varied building line indicate historic reordering and adaptation. The road front has a five-window elevation with an inserted garage opening to the left and three horned sashes with flat arches above. To the right there is an inserted door under a flat head and two brick sealed window openings to each floor under segmental heads. The roof is hipped at the south end. The ground floor rooms appear to be former stabling adapted to storage with some brick floors and concrete support to some walls and ceilings. The first floor contains an exposed king-post roof structure and, by the central closed truss, a timber-framed stairwell with a twentieth-century timber staircase. The brick walls enclosing the rear courtyard are not of special interest.