The King And Queen Hotel

THE KING AND QUEEN HOTEL

Public house on Marlborough Place, Brighton, dated 1931 on the rainwater head to the upper dormers. Designed by Clayton and Black. The building is constructed in red brick in English bond with stone dressings to the ground floor, applied half-timber and plaster to the upper floors, weatherboarding to the dormers, and a tiled roof.

The exterior comprises three storeys with attics plus a lower wing to the north of two storeys with attics. The building is executed in the Neo-Tudor style, employing popular and picturesque features of 16th century domestic architecture. The main block features a Tudor-arched entrance to its centre with a massive timber lintel. To the right are one flat-arched entrance with hoodmould and panelled door with grille, and a further flat-arched entrance under the right-hand gable with Tudor-arched moulding and panelled double doors with grilles. Immediately to the left of the right-hand gable is a stone-faced staircase bay with a pair of Tudor-arched windows with one transom under a single hoodmould.

The front is composed of a broad central bay, two outer bays, and one bay in between. The left gable is three storeys high with canted first and second storeys, featuring elaborate carving over the mullioned and transomed windows and at the angles. The second floor projects with pendants and modelled figures of Henry VIII and one of his queens in coloured plaster flanking a flat-arched window, with decorative bargeboards to the gable. The central bay displays two further figures of Henry VIII and a queen bracketed at first-floor level before a four-light window; above is a slightly projecting three-light window with grotesques to the corbels and a run of four toplights on either side. The bressumer is decorated with leaf-carving and elaborately carved bargeboards. The right-hand bay is of plaster from the first floor upwards with flat-arched windows to first and second floor linked by a decorative balustrade. The gable face is divided into lozenge patterns filled with emblems in coloured plaster, with decorative bargeboards. Set back behind the gable is an embattled tower with sheep heads projecting on either side and a further half-timbered gable above. Lead gutters on wrought-iron brackets decorated with modelled emblems run along the roof between the principal bays. There are gabled dormers with weatherboarding at second-floor level on the right and paired gabled dormers above, with a single gabled dormer to the left. A stone stack with brick shafts stands beside the tower.

The lower wing to the north has a broad carriage entrance with curved braces and pedestrian entrances to either side, with a shop front in the northernmost bay. Ground-floor bays are created by circular brick columns with stone abaci carrying timber beams. The first floor is faced with half-timber infilled with brick and contains four flat-arched windows. The carriage entrance has a mock portcullis and the side entrances have open-framed doors with wrought-iron embellishments. Lead guttering sits on wrought-iron brackets with modelled emblems. The wing has two gabled dormers and one stone side stack with brick shafts.

The beams in the archways leading from the street to a courtyard are decorated with oversized bands of grapes modelled in plaster. To the courtyard, this wing presents a balustraded and gabled range of brick and half-timber, flanked by half-timbered chamfered bays—two storeys to the left and first-floor-only to the right—both elaborately carved at the angles and surmounted by carved figures of knights, monks and others. The west side of the courtyard has a timber-framed verandah with pantiled roof, and the north side a two-storey open galleried range of timber and brick with a tiled roof, conical at the corner.

Interior: The public bar was originally divided into three spaces, with alterations made in 1967. Important original features remain: a bar front of plank construction with wrought-iron foot rail and late 20th century superstructure; an east gallery to the north end with elaborately carved bressumer and open splats to the balustrade, the upper part now glazed; timber-framing to the first floor at the south end with a bracketed canted oriel with elaborate carving at the angles; original fireplaces at either end; a four-sided settle with carved uprights and bands at the south end; two settles with linenfold panelling to the sides at the north end; quasi-heraldic glass to windows in west and south walls, some replaced; a central curved stair to the first floor, probably inserted in 1967; a panelled billiard room at the south-west corner with a flat-arched fireplace with Dutch tiles under a carved mantelshelf and window-panes decorated with yellow-stain designs. The staircase to the gallery and function room has ornate square newels, open splats to the balustrade and carved string; stained-glass panels to the staircase window depict a Spenserian knight and a damsel with a hawk in a more pictorial style than the rest.

The gallery, now a restaurant, contains a Tudor-arched fireplace with painted shields over it, and some window-panes decorated with emblems in yellow stain and quasi-heraldic and emblematic designs to the toplights. The function room features a flat-arched hearth with a bracketed mantelshelf, the brackets formed as carved heads with the shelf carved with interlaced foliage and beasts, painted emblems on the chimney breast, a barrel-vaulted ceiling apart from one bay to the south, and panelled doors with grilles to the south.