The Curzon Hotel And Attached Railings

The Curzon Hotel, originally a pair of semi-detached houses known as Cavendish Mansions, was built around 1829 and occupies the end of Cavendish Place in Brighton. The building is stucco-faced, with a roof hidden behind a parapet.

The exterior is four stories high, with a basement, and features a three-window range to each original house. The ground floor is decorated with banded rustication. The entrance to the former No. 8 is within a two-story bow, set back to the left, with a flat-arched porch entrance flanked by round-arched windows with margin lights. Behind the porch is a curved doorcase with sidelights and overlights featuring decorative glazing, a cornice, and a first floor with three flat-arched tripartite windows with original sash windows. A dentil cornice and blocking course run along the front. The Cavendish Place front displays round-arched ground-floor windows recessed within a round-arched stucco panel. A storey band separates the floors, with flat-arched upper windows; those on the first floor have architraves, individual balconies with cast-iron railings, and those on the second floor also have architraves. A dentil cornice, an attic storey, original sash windows throughout, a secondary cornice, and a stack on the party wall complete the exterior. Single-story wings extend to the east and west; the east wing replaced part of the original porch and is detailed in keeping with the main building.

The interior features curved, open-well, cantilevered staircases to the ground, first, and second floors, located at the west and east ends of the building. These staircases include a curtail step, wrought-iron balusters, wreathed mahogany handrails, and an open decorated string. The eastern staircase has been altered with the insertion of a lift. Many doors feature original, panelled, rectilinear architraves. Sets of three curved architraves are found on the half-landings, and the westernmost room on the first floor, now partitioned, retains a pedimented doorcase and an elaborately molded cornice decorated with anthemion ornament. The property is set back behind ornate cast-iron area railings with ornate finials.