The Royal Hotel, including attached North Range and rear boundary wall

The Royal Hotel is an early 19th-century building substantially enlarged around 1850, with the mid-19th-century work attributed to SB Gabriel and JH Hirst. Attached to it is a mid-19th-century stable and coach house range that was altered in the late 19th century. The complex has undergone later programmes of extension, alteration and refurbishment.

The hotel is constructed primarily of local stone rubble with brick in parts, rendered walls, and ashlar and stucco detailing. The hipped roofs are clad with slate, and there are rendered stacks to the ridges and down the roof slopes. The fenestration is a mix of styles and dates, including timber sashes and late 20th-century and early 21st-century uPVC replacements. Those on the principal building replicate the style of the mid-19th-century windows.

The hotel complex occupies a large corner plot with a north-south street frontage on South Parade. Car parking areas lie to the south-west, south and east, and an extensive lawn extends to the west as far as Royal Parade. The principal building is roughly rectangular on plan with 20th-century additions to the west, including a mid-1960s ballroom extension. From the north-east corner of the hotel an adjoining roadside range curves at the corner between South Parade and Knightstone Road.

Exterior

The hotel building is in an Italianate style and has three storeys and cellars. The principal east elevation is a symmetrical composition comprising a central entrance bay that breaks forwards, with flanking outer blocks of three bays. To the far left is a single-storey loggia, and to the right-hand end is a three-storey former service block of three bays set back. There are quoin stones to the central bay and the corners of the flanking blocks, a rusticated ground floor, first- and second-floor cill bands supported on corbels, overhanging eaves brackets and a moulded parapet.

The entrance bay has a projecting open-sided porch to the ground floor with three archways with keystones to the front, an archway to each side, and a balustrade. Within the porch is a pair of glazed doors with a round-arched window to either side. At first-floor level is a tripartite window with pilasters that have recessed panels and capitals from which the arched heads spring. There are roundel motifs in the spandrels and large keystones serve as brackets for an entablature. To the second floor is a flat-arched tripartite window with eared architrave.

The flanking blocks each have three round-arched windows with plain keystones to the ground floor, three round-arched bipartite first-floor windows with raised architrave and scrolled and fluted keystones, and three square-headed paired windows with raised surrounds to the second floor.

The south loggia is similar in style to the east entrance porch, and has rusticated wall treatment and large keystones above the arched openings, of which there are seven to the south elevation and one to either side (the latter glazed-in). It is topped by a balustrade. To the ground floor is a central entrance with casement doors and a window to either side. The first floor has bipartite windows flanking a central doorway with a raised surround of pilasters, capitals and a keystone supporting an entablature. The second floor has three flat-arched paired windows.

The Royal Parade west elevation is similarly treated, with the same arrangement of window openings and detailing. There is an additional bay at the north end. The north half of this elevation is obscured at ground-floor level by mid-20th-century additions, including an extended entrance porch to the central bay, a single-storey range and a ballroom/function room. The first floor of the projecting central bay has a tripartite window with round-arched lights, keystones and eared architrave. The window above is flat-arched and has a raised surround which is also eared. The plainer northern block has a range of window types including late-19th-century timber horned sashes, metal-framed and uPVC. To its northern elevation, the ground floor is raised above the basement and has entrance doors approached by a flight of concrete steps with metal handrail. A metal staircase rises the full height of the building.

Adjoining the north end of the hotel building is a curved two-storey range. Across the range most of the window frames and glazing have been replaced. The ground floor of the roadside elevation has round-arched windows, including a Venetian window, two infilled doorways and a wide segmental-arched opening to the rear courtyard. All have heavy surrounds with keystones and an impost band joining the openings. The arrangement of the first floor is less regular. Most have round-arched heads, keystones and corbels below the cills. Above the passageway is a flat-arched tripartite window and to the left of this is a Venetian window. To the far right is a segmental-arched taking-in door.

The courtyard elevation is plainer and has sash windows and a tripartite window above the passageway in the south part of the range. The western half has three wide openings under flat arches with timber doors and a gabled enclosed porch to the ground floor, and there are heavy surrounds to the first-floor openings. The three to the left-hand end are later insertions.

Interior

There has been internal refurbishment and some reconfiguration over the years, and the function of many principal ground-floor rooms has changed over time. The main east entrance leads into a central hallway and reception area which contains the main open-well staircase. This has an open string, decorative wrought-iron balusters and a moulded handrail, and terminates with a volute newel and curtail step. Large doorways with fanlights set in raised surrounds with keystones on either side of the hall access the spine corridors which run the length of the building. This arrangement is replicated on the upper floors.

The original drawing room, waiting room and a bedroom in the south end of the building have been opened up to form a single space which functions as the hotel bar. There is a further bar area in the single-storey addition on the west side of the building which is accessed from the entrance hall. This leads onto the ballroom. To the north of the hall, sections of the corridor walls have been removed to create a large dining room. Most of the public areas have cornices and ceiling plasterwork of different designs. There are panelled doorcases to the rooms on the half landings, and some of the arched openings have a moulded architrave, but many of the fittings, including the doors, date from the late 20th century and most of the fireplaces have been covered over. To the upper floors, the landings have been enclosed with timber and glazed partitions. A second staircase at the north end of the building has a plain metal handrail and balusters and gives access to further rooms. A lift is also located here.

The roadside range to the north has also been subject to internal reconfiguration, and the room divisions between the former billiard room, smoking room and bar parlour have been removed to create an open-plan bar with late 20th-century and early 21st-century fittings. The stalls in the former stables have also been removed and this part of the ground floor serves as three separate storage areas. There are a number of bedrooms to the first floor.

Subsidiary features

The western boundary to the hotel grounds along Royal Parade is marked by a low wall of random stone rubble, which has been rebuilt in places, and modern metal railings. The north end of the wall has a pier with a pyramidal cap. Much of the hotel courtyard is bounded by the north end of the hotel and the attached two-storey range, but beyond the west end of the range, adjacent to Knightstone Road, is a ramped wall of random stone rubble with dressed stone coping.