Melbourne Tower Hotel And Tower Hall Hotel

TORQUAY

SX9063 ROUSDOWN ROAD, Chelston 885-1/17/340 (West side) Melbourne Tower Hotel and Tower Hill Hotel

GV II

Pair of villas, both in use as hotels. 1870s. Plastered; natural slate roofs with wrought-iron finials; stacks with rendered shafts with deep moulded cornices and shaped sunk panels. PLAN: Mirror-plan pair, each with front wings, entrances on the outer returns and rear service wings at right-angles. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys and half-basement with 3-storey entrance towers. Lavish external detail. Each entrance elevation has a projecting central 3-stage tower with a pyramidal roof; one window to the left, elevation blind to the right. Deep eaves with dentil cornice; moulded sill band; platband. Tower with pilaster strips; round-headed doorway and round-headed windows with keyblocks to the returns. Projecting cornice with dentil frieze at first floor level with stucco pediment over. 2nd stage has paired round-headed windows with moulded architraves and keyblocks. Triple windows to 3rd stage of tower with paired pilasters. To left of the tower one ground- and one first-floor 2-pane sash. To right of the tower a shallow projecting sash. The 2-window front elevation of each villa has a gabled outer wing with a 2-storey canted bay. Gable decorated with stucco arch; bay with brattished balustrading to left and right. Ground-floor windows square-headed with proud architraves; first-floor windows round-headed, all glazed with 2-pane sashes. Shallower 1-bay projection towards centre has similarly treated windows and hipped roof. Division between villas marked by pilaster. Tower Hill Hotel, to the right, has a single-storey flat-roofed addition to left of the entrance tower. INTERIOR: Not inspected but likely to retain features of interest. A grand typically Torbay design in a prominent position in Chelston, an unspoiled C19 suburb of Torquay.

Listing NGR: SX9043363641