Queens Arcade, Hastings

Queens Arcade, Hastings

This shopping arcade with assembly room dates to around 1881 and was designed by Philip Tree and Charles Val Hunter. It was erected by F Cruttenden. The building is constructed with brick and stucco render frontages featuring moulded and stone detailing, while the arcade frame itself is of cast iron.

The arcade follows a linear, L-shaped plan with street entrances at each end. The building comprises a basement level, ground floor shops arranged either side of a passageway, and storerooms above. At the southern end, a first-floor assembly room is accessed both internally and from a separate entrance in York Gardens.

The York Gardens frontage presents a broadly symmetrical classical composition of three bays, marked by pilasters. The ground floor is rendered with moulded detailing and features a projecting round-headed entrance approached by a flight of steps. This entrance is flanked by three stepped pilasters on each side with dentil detailing, and the arch has a console keystone. The entrance is now secured by a 20th-century metal shutter and topped with a high-set semi-circle of iron railings. To the left is a large six-pane window (replaced in uPVC), surmounted by panels of foliage design; the right-side window appears to have been infilled. Further left is a separate entrance to the assembly room, framed by pilasters rising to a string course that spans the full width of the frontage. Above this doorway is a segmental pediment on console brackets. The paired timber doors have raised and fielded panelling and brass furniture.

The first floor is faced in brown brick laid in Flemish bond and delineated by rusticated pilasters supporting an entablature, moulded cornice and parapet. The projecting central bay frames three windows: a tall central casement with two transoms and multi-pane upper section, surmounted by a scrolled pediment over a festoon on dentil detailing. The narrower side windows are similar with triangular pediments. The two bays flanking the centrepiece follow the central window treatment. Beneath each window is a panelled stone apron. The assembly room has a pitched slate roof with glazed panels forming the central section.

The two-bay Queens Road frontage is set into an adjacent building (7-8 Queens Road and the Odeon Cinema, formerly the Gaiety Theatre). This single-storey rendered opening features a tall entrance on the left framed by panelled pilasters with triglyph detail and consoles decorated with foliage and fruit; it is now secured by a 20th-century metal shutter. To the right is a tall three-pane window with rounded shoulders, similarly framed by pilasters and consoles. Above is a fascia carrying raised letters spelling "QUEEN'S ARCADE" and a decorative wrought-iron bracket supporting a metal crown light fitting.

Internally, the shopfronts are delineated by pilasters with moulded triglyph detailing and surmounted by scrolled pediments. The timber entrance doors mostly consist of a single timber panel beneath a tall glazed pane. Each original shopfront has a rendered stall riser, one or two plate glass windows beneath panels and a strip of horizontal window panes, with a plain fascia and string course above. At first-floor level, there are four casement windows below a transom, with multi-pane windows to the sides and a segmental window to the centre. The pilasters carry decorative consoles with leaf moulding. Exposed cast-iron roof arches spring from these consoles and feature a pierced decorative filigree pattern. The pitched lantern roof has regular clerestory windows and glazed roof panels.

Above the York Gardens entrance at first-floor level is an internal end gable formed of three bays. The centre contains an aedicule with triangular pediment and fanlight, flanked by windows with moulded architraves and triglyph detail surmounted by segmental pediments. A panel above the Queens Road entrance features a round-headed arch with console keystone beneath a moulded cornice. Signage throughout appears to be 20th-century work.

The main passageway at the York Gardens end has two timber panelled doors with round-shouldered fanlights providing access to the basement and assembly room above. At the Queens Road end is a 20th-century door set into the shopfront, giving access to an adjacent shop or apartment at Number 3 Queens Road. The arcade shops behind Numbers 5, 5A and 6 Queens Road have been absorbed into those buildings but retain their general arcade form. A number of arcade shops retain straight stairs to the rear providing access to first-floor storage rooms. The interiors of the shops, storerooms and assembly room were not inspected. The main passageway floor has 20th-century tiling and light fittings.