Carlisle Parade Car Park including the subway, entrance ramps, sunken garden and three shelters, and five additional Shelters on Eversfield Place

Carlisle Parade Car Park, including the subway, entrance ramps, sunken garden and three shelters, and five additional shelters on Eversfield Place

An underground car park opened in 1931 as part of phase 1 of Hastings Promenade, built by Sidney Little, Borough Engineer. The car park is an underground structure approximately 300 metres long by 20 metres wide, situated beneath the promenade slab and between the Victorian sea wall and 1930s sea wall. It creates car parking bays on either side of a central access road, accessed by ramped drives.

The structure is formed of reinforced concrete haunched portal frames. The internal columns are supported on piles, while the ends of the spans bear directly on the Victorian sea wall to the north and the 1930s sea wall to the south. The Victorian wall is constructed of mass concrete faced with coursed stone. The roof slab is in-situ reinforced concrete and supports the main road carriageway and the sea front promenade. The floor slab is a suspended in-situ reinforced concrete slab with a concrete surface, recently covered with an asphalt wearing course. Entrance and exit ramps are located at mid-length, with a third, now redundant ramp to the west.

Three decorative reinforced concrete shelters at street level house ventilation shafts for the car park. Each has a curved splayed canopy with supporting stub columns and corner wing walls, with timber seating included.

The parapet wall and balustrade at the main entrance flank the ramp and ornamental gardens. These are constructed of decorative concrete panels with shallow fluting detail and rendered brickwork piers. The planting beds are retained by shallow concrete parapet walls faced in stone. The hard landscaping remains largely as originally built. Planting has changed throughout the car park's history and is not of special interest.

A subway at the east end connects the town to the promenade under the road. Its structure is the same as the car park but includes rendered blockwork walls with a false ceiling and tiled walls at the entrances.

Shelter No 1, opposite the White Rock Pavilion, is built around ventilation shafts from the car park below. It consists of a simple flat rectangular concrete canopy supported by four octagonal metal ventilation shafts and split into three bays. The central double-length section is enclosed on the south, east and west sides by a concrete screen with glass panels. The outer bays are open. All bays have wooden bench seats.

Shelters No 2, No 3 and No 4, opposite 63, 43 and 28 Eversfield Place respectively, were designed in 1934 by the Borough Architect's office. Each is of four-and-a-half bays under a flat slightly sloping rectangular canopy, supported at either end by Y-section struts. These shelters are of two levels with seating at the lower level facing the road and the upper level facing the upper promenade. The narrow central bay houses steps between the levels. Glazed screens separate the bays and enclose the seating at either end. All bays have wooden bench seats; above the road side (north) seating are decorative concrete panels inserted with glass.

Shelter No 5, opposite 10 Eversfield Place, was designed by the Borough Architect's office, date uncertain. It is of two bays with canopies springing from a central spine wall. The southern half is covered by a curved canopy, the northern half by a flat canopy. The internal walls are decorated in rectangular panels of gold, blue and brown mosaic tile. All bays have wooden bench seats.