Quayside Court Including Lamp Standards Flanking Entrance

Quayside Court, including lamp standards flanking entrance

A railway hotel built in 1864 by Thomas Allom, formerly known as the Great Eastern Hotel. It was later converted to municipal offices with public conveniences to the northeast, and is now arranged as flats.

The building is constructed of yellow Gault brick and render with stone dressings and low-pitched Welsh slate roofs. It comprises four storeys and basements with large relatively plain rear blocks.

The main northwest front displays a 9-window range arranged as 3:3:3, with a central 3-window range breaking slightly forward. The northeast and southwest corners are splayed and slightly project with single window ranges. A 3-window range fronts Eastgate Street, and a single window range appears at the northeast return flank.

The central feature of the main elevation is a dentilled pediment with a clock face set in a laurel wreath, adorned with sea monsters and lions' heads. The attic storey is of pedimented Roman cement aedicules with crayfish flanking consoles. All windows are plain double-hung sash windows; those in the attic have single central glazing bars and semicircular heads. A heavy console-supported cornice below the attic level carries a frieze of floral paterae.

Brickwork at the corners and central projection is treated as rusticated bands with courses of nailhead-moulded bricks. The second-floor windows have framing pilasters with Corinthianesque capitals, some with scrollwork aprons and others with stone balconies now lacking balustrades. On the first floor the capitals feature dolphin volutes with shell inserts, and a continuous stone balcony with decorative wrought-iron handrail is supported on large stone brackets. At the corners the balcony has a stone balustrade with semicircular projecting bays.

The ground floor features a projecting porch with stone balustrade and emphatic swags. A semicircular-headed moulded and rusticated entrance arch with Gothick nook shafts and corner piers is fronted by stone plinths with two tall cast-iron lamp standards. On either side, the ground-floor elevation has eight semicircular arch-headed windows with continuous sills and Gothick nook shafts. Above this runs a series of ten circular recesses containing busts of historical personages. A heavy bulbous stone plinth and flight of steps appear at the northeast corner.

A short screen wall return to the northeast, now serving as public lavatories, has a stone-moulded cornice and three moulded semicircular arches with keystones on rusticated brick pilasters. The arch spandrels feature shell motifs with two projecting black disc-like ornaments over decorative base surrounds.

The interior includes a porch lobby intruding into the entrance hall, which is screened by two squat Corinthianesque columns with wall-respond pilasters. To the rear is a wide opening, now partly blocked by a lift, leading to a well staircase with heavy soffit brackets. The stairs have cantilevered stone steps and iron loop balusters. Each landing is lit by a tripartite double-hung sash window with etched glass; that to the third landing has a semicircular head.

A large ground-floor room to the northeast contains four free-standing fluted Corinthianesque columns and a large semicircular recess with arcaded glazed openings to an ambulatory passage behind.