Duke Of Cornwall Hotel, Plymouth

Grade II listed 01/05/75, exterior listed, interior may be of interest. List Entry No 138 6245, Legacy System No 473629. SX4754 MILLBAY ROAD, Hoe 740-1/57/292 (South side) 01/05/75 Duke of Cornwall Hotel and attached forecourt walls and railings (Formerly Listed as: MILLBAY ROAD, Plymouth Duke of Cornwall Hotel)

GV II

Large hotel. 1865 by C Forster Hayward of London, built to cater for the GWR passengers to Millbay. MATERIALS: coursed Plymouth limestone rubble with mostly granite dressings including quoins, those to tower rock-faced; steep asbestos slate roof with stone mostly gabled dormers over an elaborate terracotta modillion cornice and iron eaves balustrade, the main roof surmounted by a clearstorey with C20 windows; tall stone, brick and terracotta axial and lateral stacks, the 4 front lateral stacks with column shafts with capitals, all with moulded cornices except for 2 battered stacks flanking the (6-storey) porch gable and tall stone stack with 4 chamfered brick shafts surmounted by spiral terracotta pots to left of tower. Baronial Gothic style. PLAN: large double-depth plan with articulated front and taller polygonal tower on the right. EXTERIOR: 3 storeys plus 2-tier attic over basement; 11-bay front with approximately central porch, narrow 2-storey-plus-attic bowed oriel with steep conical roof between left-hand bays and 4-storey plus attic and belvedere polygonal tower on the right. Steep polygonal tower roof on right, to belvedere with round-arched windows and eaves on brackets to shallower capping roof, the main tower roof reslated 1994. Many original hornless sashes without glazing bars, all chamfered openings: transomed and with 2-centred arches to ground floor, square-headed to 1st floor and squat 2-centred lights with column mullions with capitals to most 2nd-floor openings, similar mullions also to principal windows to upper floors of tower and to upper floors of bay left of tower. Tall ground floor bays with flanking buttresses with paired brackets to carry cast-iron balcony. Bay left of tower with tripartite pointed lights over ogee lights to upper floors and with cast-iron balustraded balcony on brackets between the floors. Porch has cinquefoil gable rose over triple lights over 4-light window over triple lights and there are triple squat lights above a tripartite doorway with pointed arches to overlights and glazed doors; wood and glazed canopy in front of doorway. INTERIOR: not inspected but likely to be of interest. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: forecourt walls with granite plinth surmounted by cast-iron railings with urn finials and granite piers with iron lamps set on the tapered caps. A fine example of a grand hotel designed in a Baronial Gothic style, clearly influenced by the style chosen for some of the hotels built for the great London termini. (The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Devon: London: 1989-: 665).