Description

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 4 October 2023 to update the name and address, amend description due to change in building use and to reformat the text to current standards

TQ2904SW
579-1/22/54

HOVE
QUEENS GARDENS
No 8, Kings House

(Formerly listed as The South Eastern Electricity Board, GRAND AVENUE, previously listed as: KINGSWAY, The South Eastern Electricity Board))

31/05/74

GV
II
Hotel and dwellings, at time of survey used as offices. 1871-1874, restored 1981 with large addition. Designed by James Knowles, builder J.T.Chappell, extended by Fitzroy Robinson Miller Bourne & Partners for Seeboard.

Yellow stock bricks, quoins, asbestos slate roofs with pyramid roofs to corner towers, overhanging eaves with moulded cornice, tall brick stacks with moulded caps. Italianate style.

L-plan facing south, south front: Seven storey tower left, six storey right, central block of five storeys, 3:15:3 bays; small pediment with heraldic achievement in tympanum covering the central, slightly projecting, three bays, C20 plastic sash windows without glazing bars, round-headed windows to upper stage of tower, three lowest storeys canted bays, segmental heads to ground floor and second floor windows, continous metal balconies on shaped brackets to first and second floors. Former entrance (now disused) in ninth bay right, panelled door. Left return (west) of 3:3:3 bays with six storey tower, fenestration similar to that of main elevation except for tripartite windows in centre bay; abutting C20 addition. Entrance via C20 addition. When first erected the building contained Mr Prince's Hotel in the western part, with the entrance on the site of the present rebuilt S.E.E.B. entrance, and dwellings and a club in the remainder.

David Reuben Sassoon lived at No.7 and entertained the Shah of Persia there in 1889. Over the years Prince's Hotel expanded to include the whole block and down to the Second World War it was one of the finest hotels in Hove. In 1948 it was purchased by the S.E.E.B. who used it as their headquarters until 1994.

Listing NGR: TQ2909404389

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Kings House, Hove at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q24636884

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  [(Shropshire)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1958)
• 
  Bristol (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides): Written by Charles O'Brien, 2014 Edition, Publisher: Yale University Press [Hardcover]
• 
  Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Specifications for Building Conservation: Volume 1: External Structure: Practical Examples v. 2