Former Memorial Photographic Studios

Former Memorial Photographic Studios, 52 and 52B Robertson Street and 7 Cambridge Road

This photographic studio and memorial art gallery was built around 1864 by Mr Plummer for photographer FR Wells, designed in the Italianate manner. It occupies a prominent flat-iron site at the junction of Robertson Street and Cambridge Road in the 19th-century commercial centre of Hastings.

The building is constructed of stucco-rendered brick, embellished with relief heads and descriptive text. It has hipped slate roofs, a glazed north-facing upper floor studio, and cast iron window guards.

Exterior

The block stands three storeys high with attics, arranged in three bays. The ground floor shops on Robertson Street have altered or replaced shopfronts, and the fascia of the corner unit obscures or replaces any original fabric; these modern interventions are not of special interest.

The two upper floors are articulated by three shallow bow-windowed bays beneath an enriched continuous entablature and cornice. At first floor level, alternating pediments crown the windows. These bays are separated by rusticated panels or piers that terminate in small pediments rising from the parapet. The attic storey features grouped round-headed windows over the main window bays and at the apex of the block, with single windows in the outer bays. The central bay has a round-arched shell head with a panel below inscribed "STUDIO", while the flanking piers are enriched with cartouches, each bearing a relief of a head in semi-profile. Windows throughout have single-pane horned sashes, and the first floor single windows retain cast iron window guards. The pediment over the first floor window on the bullnose corner is hidden behind a temporary panel, while the second floor window has lost its pediment.

The Cambridge Road elevation is dominated by a large blank panel with cut-back angles, inscribed "MEMORIAL ART GALLERY" beneath a detached moulded cornice. Above this panel sits the north-facing studio window, which fills the wide central bay at upper floor level beneath a single-pitched glazed roof. The adjacent bays have hipped slate roofs concealed behind the parapet. The studio window comprises timber casements and fixed lights set behind a cast iron window guard. The eastern bay echoes the Robertson Street elevation. To the west stands a three-storey projecting oriel bay, similarly enriched with a rusticated first floor and pedimented or round-arched sash windows. This oriel is set above an altered or possibly inserted entrance. The studio roof is flanked by tall chimney stacks in narrow bays which, from ground to upper floors, echo the treatment of the main elevation and feature deep cornices on moulded brackets.

The building has lost the tall lantern that once dominated the apex of the block, as well as stacks or finials on the Robertson Street elevation.

Interior

The ground floor has been altered. Internally, the studios are accessed from a staircase at the western end of the block, reached from the Cambridge Road entrance. Some floors appear to be subdivided, with a small room at the apex of the block, and are now used as offices.

History

The Memorial Studio was built around 1864 by Mr Plummer for photographer FR Wells. It occupied premises above 51 and 52 Robertson Street, with number 52 equipped with a north-facing "glass-house" studio, which was said to be the "Best Lighted one on the South Coast". The building remained in continuous use as a photographic studio until the end of the First World War.

Following the pioneering work of Daguerre and Fox Talbot in the 1830s, which enabled images to be fixed on paper and printed from negatives, commercial photography developed rapidly. The wet collodion process was developed in the 1850s, followed by the dry plate technique in the late 1870s, both of which accelerated the photographic process and reduced costs.

Commercial photographers recognised opportunities in the growing seaside resorts and spas, where holidaymakers with disposable income sought new diversions, including the rapidly expanding business of portrait photography. Richard Beauford established a studio in St Leonards in 1849, joined by Mr D Gates and Frederick Brookes in 1854. By 1861, there were half a dozen photographic studios in Hastings and St Leonards. London-based photographers might expand their businesses by investing in second studios; Robert Boning, for example, opened a studio in St Leonards in 1864. Robert Farmer in Brighton and Albert Vidler in Eastbourne had each constructed purpose-built "glasshouses" in the 1850s "on scientific principles" and "expressly for the purpose".

From the mid-1880s, the Memorial Studio was connected with a family with a long and productive association with the photographic profession. William Stephen Bradshaw (1833-1915) began his career as a photographers' assistant in 1856, working for the London Stereoscopic and Photographic Company, one of the most successful commercial photographers of its day. In 1874 he moved to the rival firm, The London School of Photography, before establishing his own business in one of their studios at 103 Newgate Street in 1876. The business expanded, acquiring a second studio in Cheapside. By 1881 his elder son GW Bradshaw was registered as a photographer, working with his father in London, while his younger son, also a photographer, went on to manage the family business in South Africa. By 1885 WS Bradshaw & Sons was advertising a studio in Hastings, which two years later GW Bradshaw took over, occupying first 52c and then 52d Robertson Street until he left Hastings in 1901. Although noted largely for his studio portraits, some of his views of Hastings survive. During the 1890s he experimented with the use of the platinotype, which used platinum rather than silver to produce a crisper and more durable photograph.

The building is listed for its architectural interest as a purpose-built photographic studio with an embellished exterior advertising its trade; its ornate stucco-rendered Italianate facades enriched with descriptive text and figure sculpture; its plan form of north-facing top-lit studios above shops on a prominent flat-iron site; its largely unaltered upper floor exteriors and sufficient studio layout to demonstrate its function; its rarity as an unusual and early survival of a once-common seaside facility that was purpose-built; and its historical interest through continuous, well-documented use as photographic studios illustrating the development of the profession from the mid-19th to early 20th century in the particular context of the seaside resort.