Royal Pier Hotel

The Royal Pier Hotel, now a public house, was remodelled in 1869 by Hans Price, with extensions added around the 1890s. It is built of rock-faced snecked stone with freestone dressings, and has a steeply-pitched slate roof, from which the original iron ridge cresting is missing. The building has axial and gable-end stacks with stone and rendered shafts.

The building is a long range comprising two distinct parts, built into a cliff. The entrance is on the higher landward east front, while the lower seaward elevation faces west. A projecting bar extension was added around the 1890s to the southwest.

The architectural style is Victorian Gothic. The east front presents an asymmetrical facade of 3:3:1:2:1 bays, featuring depressed 2-centred arch windows with alternating rusticated voussoirs, quoins and 4-pane sashes. The left side includes a canted bay with a steeply-pitched hipped roof, a stone frieze below the eaves inscribed 'ROCK HOUSE HOTEL,' a projecting porch, and an integral bay with a shouldered head doorway and windows. A two-storey gabled porch is at the centre, with the left bay set back and featuring a corbelled gabled oriel in the angle. Small gables and triangular dormers are also present. The south return also has depressed 2-centred arch windows and a chimney breast with an integral corbelled gable and a stack above. The west-facing rear elevation, overlooking the sea, has a basement level and the circa 1890s bar extension projecting to the right. Two gables are present, featuring arch-braced bargeboards, as well as three steeply-pitched gabled dormers and similar depressed 2-centred arch windows.

The interior retains some 19th-century joinery, including an open-well staircase with turned balusters and a moulded mahogany handrail, and a bar with a panelled front to the counter, panelled doors, and moulded elliptical arches.

The Royal Pier Hotel was built in 1869 alongside the pier, tollhouse, to provide refreshments and accommodation for visitors arriving by steamer. The building is a remodelling of the earlier Rock House Hotel, which was present as early as the 1820s.