New Continental Hotel And Attached Forecourt Walls And Railings

The New Continental Hotel, built in the 1870s, served passengers arriving at Millbay railway station. It is a large building constructed from stucco, with dry slate mansard roofs concealed behind balustraded parapets. The roof features attic windows, stuccoed end and axial stacks, and a steep octagonal cupola at the corner, topped with an ogee dome and ball finial. The plan is extensive, with cranked elevations that embrace a splayed corner; the taller corner block was added slightly later.

The hotel is three stories with a five-story corner block, plus an attic over a basement. The front facing Millbay Road has ten bays and three bays on one return, with a 20th-century extension to one side. The corner features a splayed centre bay and a three-bay return with the bays projecting forward. Many original hornless sash windows with vertical glazing bars are present in the original sections, while the later sections have similarly styled windows.

Architectural detailing includes channelled rustication to the ground floor, rusticated quoins flanking the canted bay windows, and quoin strips. The original part has a moulded cornice above the ground floor, segmental pediments on consoles above the first-floor openings, a second-floor sill string on brackets, moulded architraves, and a modillion cornice to the parapet. The later additions have a mid-floor entablature with moulded cornices and architraves, plus segmental pediments over the first-floor windows. The Millbay Road front features an original pilastered doorway with a segmental-arched opening in the fifth bay from the left. The corner entrance is tripartite, with rounded doorheads resembling barrel vaults set on moulded cornices, spoked fanlights, and glazed doors.

The interior has not been inspected, but is expected to reflect the quality of the exterior.

Attached to the returns are forecourt walls; the wall on the right-hand return has square piers with moulded capitals and linking wrought-iron railings. The other return has a rock-faced plinth and wrought-iron railings with arrowhead finials.

The hotel is designed as a complete stuccoed composition in a style influenced by Italianate architecture, providing a contrast to the Duke of Cornwall Hotel.