Description

TQ 3103 NW BRIGHTON GRAND JUNCTION ROAD
(North side)
577-1/46/299
Western wing of the Royal
05.08.1999 Albion Hotel

II

Formerly known as: Lion Mansions Hotel GRAND JUNCTION ROAD.
Includes: Western wing of the Royal Albion Hotel OLD STEINE
Hotel. 1856. Stucco. Roof parapeted. Principal elevations to extension of Old Steine, north, and Grand Junction Road, south.
EXTERIOR: north-facing elevation has a 6-window range and 4 storeys, with attic, over basement. Ground floor treated as rustication. Entrance in third-window range set under Doric prostyle porch with responds; above, first-floor balcony with pierced balustrade, on top of which a sculpture of a lion reclining. Segmental-arched windows to either side of entrance; all other openings are flat arched. In the first-, 5th- and 6th-window ranges is a canted bay, with tripartite windows, rising from the ground to the third floors. 4 giant pilasters of the Composite order rise from the first through the third floors, in the second- through 4th-window ranges. Each first-floor window set in a Tuscan aedicule; second-floor windows have architraves and are topped by alternating segmental and triangular pediments; both first- and second-floor windows are floor to ceiling; architraves to third-floor and attic windows. Entablature between third floor and attic. Cast-iron balconettes to first-floor and bay windows; cast-iron railings to areas on all elevations.
The rest of the building follows the irregular site along Pool Valley to Grand Junction Road. Grand Junction Road elevation has elaborately faceted plan with a 7-window range: ranges one through 3 turn the corner; range 4 angles sharply back to form a full-height aris; ranges 5 through 7 set into facets of full-height canted bay to right party wall. Rustication to ground floor. All openings flat arched with architraves; the triple windows to the full-height bay at the right-party wall have no architraves. All first- and second-floor windows have cast-iron balconettes of a mid to late C19 design. Second-floor windows with pediments. Entrance at base of "V" formed by conjunction of ranges 4 and 5; it is set under a tetrastyle portico with columns paired at corner to give a broad centre gap; the plan of the portico is segmental, following.
Pool Valley elevation: 4-window range. Full-height canted bays. Storey bands between all floors. On both elevations there is an entablature with dentil cornice between third floor and attic and a plain entablature band to attic.
INTERIOR not inspected.
HISTORICAL NOTE: a green plaque to the right of the Grand Junction Road entrance reads: "William Ewart Gladstone, 1809-1898, often stayed at this Hotel, then known as Lion Mansions Hotel". Specifically excluded from this listing is the structure to the right of the Grand Junction Road elevation: it has 6 storeys with attic and 2 full-height, shallow canted bays rising from an enclosed, ground-floor porch. The structure was built on the site of William's Baths. Prior to its incorporation in the Royal Albion Hotel in 1963, it was also known as the Adelphi.

Listing NGR: TQ3130303903

Selected Sources

• Carder, T, Encyclopaedia of Brighton, (1990), 160C

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