Queens Arcade, Hastings, Hastings, East Sussex

Summary

Shopping arcade with assembly room of around 1881, by Philip Tree and Charles Val Hunter, erected by F Cruttenden.

Description

Shopping arcade with assembly room of around 1881, Philip Tree and Charles Val Hunter, erected by F Cruttenden.

MATERIALS: the street frontages are of brick with stucco render and moulded or stone detailing. The arcade frame is of cast-iron.

PLAN: a linear, L-shaped arcade with street entrances to each end. It has a basement, shops to either side of a ground floor passageway and storerooms above. At the southern end there is a first-floor assembly room, which is accessed internally and from an entrance in York Gardens.

EXTERIOR: the York Gardens frontage is a broadly symmetrical, classical free-style composition of three bays, marked by pilasters. The ground floor is rendered with moulded detailing. It has a projecting, round-headed entrance, approached by a flight of steps. It has three, stepped pilasters to either side which have dentil detailing and the arch has a console keystone. It is secured by a C20 metal shutter and a high-set, semi-circle of iron railings. To the left of the entrance there is a large, six-pane window (replaced in uPVC), which is surmounted by panels of a foliage design. To the right side, the window appears to have been infilled. To the far-left side, there is an entrance to the assembly room. It has pilasters to either side which rise to the string course, which spans the width of the frontage. Above the doorway there is a segmental pediment on console brackets. The paired, timber entrance doors have raised and fielded panelling and brass door furniture.

The first floor is faced in brown brick laid in a Flemish bond and is delineated by rusticated pilasters. It supports an entablature, a moulded cornice and a parapet. The projecting central bay frames three windows; the taller central window has a six-pane casement with two transoms, the upper section being multi-pane. It is surmounted by a scrolled pediment over a festoon on dentil detailing. The narrower side windows are similar but have a triangular pediment. The two bays to either side of the centrepiece follow the treatment of the large central window. Beneath each window, there is a panelled, stone apron. The assembly room has a pitched, slate roof, the central part of which is formed of glazed panels.

The two-bay, Queens Road frontage is set into an adjacent building (7-8 Queens Road and Odeon Cinema, formerly the Gaiety Theatre). The opening is single storey and rendered with moulded detailing. To the left side there is a tall entrance framed by panelled pilasters with triglyph detail, surmounted by consoles decorated with foliage and fruit. The entrance is secured by a C20 metal shutter. To the right side there is a tall, three-pane window with rounded shoulders, which has pilasters and consoles of a similar design. Above, there is a fascia which carries the raised letters 'QUEEN'S ARCADE' and a decorative wrought-iron bracket, supporting a metal crown light fitting.

INTERIOR: the shopfronts are delineated by pilasters with moulded triglyph detailing, surmounted by scrolled pediments. The timber entrance doors mainly have a single timber panel beneath a tall, glazed pane. Each original shop front has a rendered stall riser and one or two plate glass windows, beneath panels and a strip of horizontal window panes. Above, there is a plain fascia with string course. The first floor has four casement windows below a transom, above which, the windows are multi-pane to the sides and segmental to the centre. The pilasters to either side have a decorative console with a leaf moulding. Exposed cast-iron roof arches spring from the consoles and have a pierced, decorative filigree pattern. The pitched, lantern roof has regular clerestory windows and glazed roof panels.

Above the York Gardens entrance at first floor level, there is an internal end gable. It is formed of three bays. To the centre there is an aedicule with triangular pediment and fanlight. To either side there are windows, with moulded architraves and triglyph detail, surmounted by segmental pediments. There is also a panel above the Queens Road entrance, which has a round-headed arch with console keystone, beneath a moulded cornice. The signage throughout appears to be C20.

The main passageway (at the York Gardens end) has two, timber panelled doors with round-shouldered fanlights, which provide access to the basement level and up to the assembly room. At the Queens Road end there is an additional C20 door set into the shop front, which gives access to an adjacent shop or apartment in Queens Road (Number 3). The arcade shops that stand behind Numbers 5, 5A and 6 Queens Road, appear to have been absorbed into these buildings, but retain their general form to the arcade side. A number of the arcade shops retain a straight stair to the rear, providing access to first floor storage rooms. The interior of the shops, storerooms and the assembly room were not inspected.

The main passageway floor has C20 tiling and light fittings.

History

The town of Hastings has been a strategic point of defence from invasion, since the medieval period and a protective wall was erected in the early 1300s. In 1337 the town was twice attacked by the French and badly damaged. Up until around 1800, there were two main streets (High Street and All Saints Street), both of which were inside the defences. The threat from France continued throughout the early 1800s and the Duke of Wellington commanded a garrison of around 12,000 troops, from a headquarters in the High Street.

Nevertheless, by around 1794, Hastings began to develop as a seaside resort with the publication of a printed guidebook and the development of Marine Parade. In the mid-C19, the wealthy businessman Patrick Robertson (1807-1885) leased the crown lands of the town for 99 years at a rate of £500 per year. In 1850 he commenced construction of a grand scheme of terraces and municipal buildings, located across Robertson Street, Carlisle Parade and Robertson Terrace. The railway arrived in the same year and during the C19, the population of Hastings grew from around 3,000 to 65,000.

During the Second World War, the town was bombed several times resulting in the death of around 154 people and the damage or total destruction of some 15,000 buildings. Post-war, the town remained a popular holiday destination until the advent of cheap foreign travel in the later C20. Falling visitor numbers were exacerbated by the decline of the town’s small trades and industries.

The site of Queens Arcade is shown on the 1843 Ordnance Survey map as an open area to the rear of buildings on Queens Road and with access from York Gardens. Later in the C19, architectural plans were drawn up by Philip Tree and Charles Val Hunter, for a shopping arcade and assembly room, including the creation of a new entrance onto Queens Road. The building was erected by F Cruttenden around 1881.

The shopping arcade as a concept was a retail tradition first imported from the Continent in the early C19. It was very popular in northern cities (notably Leeds) but arcades are also found in southern seaside towns. Most Victorian arcades were two-storey with the upper rooms connected to the shops by a staircase, but used for a variety of purposes including storerooms and offices. The shops did not have back yards or doors and were resupplied out of hours, via the arcade corridor. As a result, most sold lightweight goods such as jewellery or haberdashery.

The Queens Arcade has storerooms located above the shops and one was let by a Mr Twigg to the inventor of television, John Logie Baird (1888-1946) who used it as a laboratory. Here, he expanded his apparatus to create a complex web of wires, batteries, lamp bulbs and whirling discs which was able to transmit shadows of letters and simple outlines from one machine to another. In July 1924, as part of an experiment to add more power (2,000 volts) and increase the range of the transmission, Baird suffered an accident due to a short circuit which threw him across the room and left him with burnt hands. As a result of this he was asked to leave the Queens Arcade, however he persisted with his research elsewhere and on 26 January 1926, delivered the first demonstration of true television before 50 scientists in an attic room in central London.

The assembly room was altered during the C20 to facilitate use as part of an adjacent, former South-Eastern Electricity office, including a first-floor bridge over York Gardens (now removed and the elevation restored). On the ground floor, a number of the shop fronts have been altered or replaced.

Reasons for Listing

The Queens Arcade of around 1881, by Philip Tree and Charles Val Hunter, erected by F Cruttenden, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* a well-designed example of a late-C19 shopping arcade with first floor storerooms and an assembly room, decorated in a classical free-style, with decorative key stones, console brackets and shaped pediments;

* the arcade walkway has finely judged classical decoration with a consistency that adds to the architectural interest;

* despite some modernisation, it retains the character and form of a Victorian shopping arcade which was built as a piece and retains its footprint.

Historic interest:

* as a C19 shopping arcade, which includes some of the best features of contemporary arcades and continues a retail tradition first imported from the Continent in the early C19.

External Links

Historic England Listing

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