Former Royal Castle Hotel

Former Royal Castle Hotel

This former hotel dates from around 1810 and was designed by Mr Colley of Barnstaple. It has been much modified internally during the late 19th century and has since been significantly reduced in size, now comprising a single unit. The original larger range and wing described in earlier listing records have been demolished. A lightly attached billiard room stands at the rear on the northeast corner.

The building is constructed with a rendered ground floor and painted slate-hung upper level, beneath a slate roof. The front block appears to have originated as a symmetrical three-window range with a later extension to the right. It stands two storeys high with a 3+2 window front.

The front elevation features sash windows throughout. The upper floor has a central arched twenty-pane window with radial bars, flanked by two twelve-pane windows, with two further twelve-pane windows to the far right. The ground floor contains a distinctive semi-octagonal granite porch with crenellations over a central arched opening, approached by three steps. On each side of the porch are glazed arched openings. To the left of the porch is a door with margin-pane glazing, and to the right a sash window. Across the frontage, interrupted by the porch, runs the original tent canopy with a felted roof and decorative cast-iron frieze and standards, which return to the left. To the right stands a complex gabled glazed porch covering a pair of glazed doors with transom light. The left gable contains a broad stack and a lower hipped slate-hung extension with a west-facing window, set above and cutting through the former tent canopy. The eaves course is formed by slates spaced in the manner of dentils.

The sea frontage displays three original twelve-pane sashes and a later four-pane sash. A small hipped semi-octagonal conservatory with cusped lights and patterned glass stands here, alongside a later 19th-century double-gabled extension set back to the right. Projecting forward from the front to the left is a former billiard room with large twenty-pane sashes featuring Y-tracery and a central six-panel door in a deep arched reveal. Two further sashes face north above a basement. This element is formed as a pavilion with a pyramidal hipped roof.

Interior

The interior has been much modified, with the majority of detailing dating from the late 19th century. To the left of the main entry is one large space, formerly comprising two rooms. To the right is the staircase, which rises from a lateral passage with a Minton tile floor, leading to service rooms on the ground floor. Beyond this is an inner room featuring an Art Nouveau fireplace surround incorporating a beaten copper frieze and fine tiles with a decorative cast-iron grate. This fireplace is said to have been assembled from fragments of other fireplaces in the building, though it appears stylistically consistent. The ceiling frieze is composed of flat scrolls. This room is enclosed by the later conservatory at a lower level, with which it communicates through a full-width opening. Opposite the staircase is a room with a palmette cornice and Minton tile floor; the doorcases are reeded. The polished hardwood dogleg staircase dates from the late 19th or early 20th century, featuring tapered octagonal balusters and capped newels with panelling to the upper floor. Many of the doors throughout are panelled with mouldings.