Royal Crescent Hotel and Attached Walls and Railings

Royal Crescent Hotel and Attached Walls and Railings, Brighton

The first two storeys were built as a private house in the early 19th century. Between 1848 and 1857 it was converted into a hotel, with its current appearance dating to the late 19th century.

The building is constructed in stucco with a roof obscured by a parapet, rising five storeys over a basement. The main elevation presents a 3-window range, with the left return containing 9 windows and the right return 11 windows.

The main elevation is treated as three full-height bays—the centre segmental and the sides canted—each with tripartite windows. The ground floor features banded rustication in the form of voussoirs and keystones in the window lintels, with corner quoins rising the full height. The ground-floor bay windows are flat arched with overlights filled with decorative wood pelmets. Flat-arched windows appear on all floors except the first.

Entablature blocks articulate each pier of the bay as a pilaster, with panelled shafts. A three-storey porch rises from the first to the third floors, supported by cast-iron brackets—heavy square ones at the second and third floors—with cast-iron railings and colonnettes. The third floor has a concave-section metal verandah roof.

Each first-floor bay window is arranged as a Venetian window with a round-arched centre and flat-arched sides, framed by a continuous architrave interrupted by an entablature running across the window head. At the top is a broad entablature and high parapet bearing an escutcheon framed by rustication and topped by a Dutch gable. The parapet over each side bay is surmounted by a stilted pediment. Raised panels decorate the parapet between the crestings of the bays, along with a balustrade.

At ground level are two low walls enclosed by cast-iron railings. The flat-arched entry is in the right return, set within a prostyle porch consisting of four Tuscan columns and surmounted by a marquee bearing "Royal Crescent Hotel".

On the right return, ground-floor windows are round arched with continuous architraves. First-floor windows are flat arched except for that over the entrance, which is Venetian, all with continuous architraves. Second-floor windows are flat arched with eared architraves, projecting sills supported by pairs of brackets. Continuous sill bands run below third-floor windows. Third and fourth-floor windows have continuous architraves. The area between third and fourth-floor windows in the first, third and fifth bays is enclosed by pilaster strips, each decorated with a garland. Windows in the second bay from the first to fourth floors are blocked.

A break occurs between the fifth and sixth bay of this elevation, with the rear six bays slightly lower than the front. Ground-floor windows here are round arched; the remainder are flat. Ground to second-floor windows have continuous architraves. The rear block has two full-height bays: the first segmental with a Doric porch in antis, the second canted.

The left return follows the same arrangement of windows and architraves. Its rear block is plain with scattered fenestration.

Cast-iron railings enclose the areas, and cast-iron window guards protect the first-floor windows on the returns.

A white plaque near the entrance on the right return reads: "In a house now part of this building lived George Canning, Statesman, born 1770, died 1827".