Hotel Majestic

The Hotel Majestic is a hotel of 1904, altered subsequently, designed by JY McIntosh for Henry Tyson. It is constructed of red brick with red ashlar sandstone to the ground floor and dressings, topped by a graduated slate roof. The building is three storeys with an attic, and it has a 2:3:3:2 bay arrangement; bays 1 and 2 are flat, while the remaining bays are set on a curve, with the outer bays being broader. A chamfered plinth rises to a channel-rusticated ground floor; the principal bay divisions feature three-storey pilasters. The ground floor originally had an ashlar doorcase in bay 3, now a window, featuring an archivolt and Jacobean panels; a simpler doorcase in bay 9 contains panelled double doors and a segmental pediment raised on three short pilasters. A third doorway in bay 1 is also now a window, featuring a dentilled cornice and pedimented niche over. Moulded limestone sills are linked by a band. Later casements are set in bolection-moulded architraves with pulvinated friezes and segmental pediments, and a canopied entrance is formed through the bays 2’s windows. The cornice forms the sills to the first-floor windows and rises to two-storey pilasters between the central bays. The windows are unequally-hung sashes with lintels and cornices; the outer bays have three-light mullioned windows in corniced architraves. Sunken apron panels are present below the shorter, second-floor windows, and the outer windows have pilaster mullions. The principal-pilaster capitals are carved with volutes and Edwardian masks, and the date ‘1904’ is displayed in the centre of the facade. Stylised Flemish gables rise over the ends of the building, each with large scrolled supports, windows on two levels, and pilasters supporting segmental pediments. An ashlar balustrade runs centrally, and behind it are six gabled roof dormers and a central brick stack with panelled sides; a matching ridge stack is situated behind the left gable. Various plans were submitted for the building between 1901 and 1903. Early 20th-century photographs show the dormers were originally round-headed.