Redcliffe Hotel

Details

PAIGNTON

SX8961 MARINE DRIVE 1947-1/4/62 (East side) 13/03/51 Redcliffe Hotel

II

House, 1855-65 with an earlier core, for Robert Smith, a retired Indian engineer; contractor, Tozer of Paignton (Tully). Converted to hotel in 1903, contractor Dart and Pollard of Paignton (plaque in entrance hall). Various C20 alterations and additions. Smith's building in Gothick style with Indian influence. MATERIALS: Roughcast with stuccoed detail; roof and stacks of original build concealed by parapets. PLAN: On the sea front. Approximate T-shaped plan. No obvious trace of the pre-1853 house, converted by Smith. Smith's building, although somewhat obcsured by later accretions, consisted of a rotunda facing E out to sea with, according to Pevsner, 3 added wings, for picture gallery, conservatory and billiard room, and servants' quarters. Originally there was a tunnel, destroyed in a storm in 1867, leading to a plunge bath on the beach below. Only the N wing is still identifiable (on the W side) as Smith's building. The W wing was thoroughly recast in c1902 and has been extended W. The S wing has also been altered. The 1986 addition is not included in the listing. EXTERIOR: 3-storey rotunda; 2-storey wings; W wing 3 storeys. East elevation, facing the sea consists of the rotunda with a 4-bay front, flanked by a 5:2 window wing to the left (S) and a 2:6-window front to the right (N). The rotunda has a corbelled parapet with ogival merlons and an inner parapet behind with flattened spear-shaped merlons and seimi-circular embrasures. Rotunda crowned by an octagon with a copper tent roof with ball finial and weathervane. Platband at first-floor level. The east front has a 2-tier canted bay in the centre and to the left; single-storey canted bays to left and right of centre. Ground floor has round-headed windows (C20 glazing with timber bars) in ogival frames with curly ogee hoodmoulds with a star at the apex. Canted bays have plain parapets. Recessed crosses in the front wall contain painted reliefs of thistles and apples in roundels. First-floor windows similar with spear motifs at the apex of the hoodmoulds. Central canted bay has a cast-iron balcony on brackets with diagonal braces and central decorated roundels. Parapet may originally have been decorated with pineapples (these survive on the left-hand bay window). Wall between windows decorated with Maltese crosses. 2nd-floor windows smaller but simialr: wall surface decorated with shields. Parapet on moulded corbels, the merlons decorated with incised crosses. To left of rotunda, a flight of curving steps up to a first-floor entrance. The left-hand wing, with a plain parapet, is in a stripped down version of the style. The right-hand wing appears to be completely C20 on the seaward front, but to the rear (W) there is a 5-bay elevation that is obviously Smith's with a parapet with ogival merlons and 2 octagonal turrets at the N end with spear-shaped battlementing. Ground-floor windows with ogival hoodmoulds and first-floor windows with shallow roughcast architraves with imitation keyblocks. The 3-storey and attic W wing has a mansard roof; coved eaves: ogee-headed attic dormer and windows with fancy stuccoed architraves of a flame-like design. The N side has seven 2nd-floor oriels on curly ogival arches with pendants. Unsuitable late C20 hotel porch across angle between rotunda and W wing. INTERIOR: Partially inspected. The ground-floor room in the rotunda retains its original plaster cornices and ceiling roses, quite delicate but of conventional design. First-floor room above said to retain similar detail. Original fireplaces may be concealed behind later plaster. c1903 stair with carved figures rising above the hand rail. Other features of interest may survive elsewhere. HISTORY: Smith died in 1873. In 1877 the house was bought by Paris Singer (Oldway Mansion qv). In 1902 it was sold and altered as a hotel. The West Country Studies Library, Exeter, holds a printed souvenir of the hotel, c1910, which records that decoration was by Coverdale and Co. of No.15, Palace Avenue, Paignton . Photographs show symmetrical low wings flanking the main block. Although very altered on the margins, the central core of the building is particularly interesting for its unusual design and details and the building makes an important contribution to the sea front at this end of Paignton. (Hotel Redcliffe, Souvenir and Tariff: 1910-; Tully P: Peter Tully's Pictures of Paignton, Part II: 1992-: 17).

Listing NGR: SX8948761333

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

383834

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Tully, P, Peter Tullys Pictures of Paignton Part 2, (1992), 17

End of official list entry

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