| Grand Ocean | |
|---|---|
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| General information | |
| Location | Saltdean, United Kingdom |
| Coordinates | 50°48′08″N0°02′09″W / 50.802266°N 0.035769°W |
| Opening | 1938 |
Grand Ocean is a restored 1938 hotel building [1] [2] [3] [4] in Saltdean, Brighton, on the south coast of England.
Grand Ocean was designed by architect RWH Jones [2] [3] [4] with the classic moderne styling of the age, it opened as a luxury hotel in 1938. [5]
During the Second World War the building was taken over by the fire service and used as a fire service college. [6] [7] It was then bought by Billy Butlin in 1953 and became a Butlin's Holiday camp. [7] In 2005 a theatrical production, Dirty Wonderland, was staged in the former hotel. [8]
Shortly thereafter the main hotel building was redeveloped into luxury apartments. [9] [10]
Notable features include the internal staircase and foyer. [11] It is included as the starting point of a local tour of Brighton architecture. [2] [3] along with Brighton Pavilion, Brighton Pier and the Regency Brunswick Town.
The year 1938 in architecture involved some significant events.
The Royal Sussex County Hospital is an acute teaching hospital in Brighton, England. Together with the Princess Royal Hospital, it is administered by the University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust. The services provided at the hospital include an emergency department, cancer services at the Sussex Cancer Centre, cardiac surgery, maternity services, and both adult and neonatal intensive care units.
Saltdean is a coastal village in the city of Brighton and Hove, with part outside the city boundary in Lewes district. Saltdean is approximately 5 miles (8 km) east of central Brighton, 5 miles (8 km) west of Newhaven, and 6 miles (9.7 km) south of Lewes. It is bordered by farmland and the South Downs National Park.
Embassy Court is an 11-storey block of flats on the seafront in Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. It has been listed at Grade II* by English Heritage. Wells Coates' "extremely controversial" piece of Modernist architecture has "divided opinion across the city" since its completion in 1935, and continues to generate strong feelings among residents, architectural historians and conservationists.
Saltdean Lido at Saltdean Park Road, Saltdean, in the city of Brighton and Hove, in the ceremonial county of East Sussex, England, is an Art Deco lido designed by architect R.W.H. Jones. Originally listed at Grade II by English Heritage for its architectural and historical importance, its status was upgraded further to "Grade II*" on 18 March 2011.
The Royal Albion Hotel is a 3-star hotel, on the corner of Old Steine and Kings Road in Brighton, England. Built on the site of a house belonging to Richard Russell, a local doctor whose advocacy of sea-bathing and seawater drinking helped to make Brighton fashionable in the 18th century, it has been extended several times, although it experienced a period of rundown and closure in the early 20th century. A fire in 1998 caused serious damage, and the hotel was restored. However, another fire in 2023 seriously damaged the building to the extent that demolition of the western part of the building began on 19 July 2023.
Royal Crescent is a crescent-shaped terrace of houses on the seafront in Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. Built in the late 18th and early 19th century as a speculative development on the open cliffs east of Brighton by a wealthy merchant, the 14 lodging houses formed the town's eastern boundary until about 1820. It was the seaside resort's first planned architectural composition, and the first built intentionally to face the sea. The variety of building materials used include black glazed mathematical tiles—a characteristic feature of Brighton's 18th-century architecture. English Heritage has listed the crescent at Grade II* for its architectural and historical importance. An adjacent five-storey building, formerly the Royal Crescent Hotel but now converted into flats with the name Royal Crescent Mansions, is listed separately at Grade II.
Sussex Heights is a residential tower block in the centre of Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. Built between 1966 and 1968 on the site of a historic church, it rises to 102 m (335 ft) and has 116 flats. As of August 2022, the tower is the 125th tallest building in the UK, and until 2005 it was the tallest residential tower in the UK outside of London. Until 2015, it was the tallest structure in Brighton, however it has now been exceeded by the i360 Tower, which stands at 162 metres.
The former French Convalescent Home was a seafront sanatorium and rest home built in Brighton, part of the English seaside city of Brighton and Hove, on behalf of the French government. It received patients from the French Hospital in London and served as a home for elderly French nationals. It was sold for redevelopment in 1999 and was briefly threatened with demolition; but English Heritage listed the building at Grade II for its architectural and historical importance, and it was converted into flats. The unusual château-style French Renaissance Revival building has been criticised as "dreary" and "gauche", but is believed to be unique in England and demonstrated innovation in its use of double glazing.
Brighton and Hove, a city on the English Channel coast in southeast England, has a large and diverse stock of buildings "unrivalled architecturally" among the country's seaside resorts. The urban area, designated a city in 2000, is made up of the formerly separate towns of Brighton and Hove, nearby villages such as Portslade, Patcham and Rottingdean, and 20th-century estates such as Moulsecoomb and Mile Oak. The conurbation was first united in 1997 as a unitary authority and has a population of about 253,000. About half of the 20,430-acre (8,270 ha) geographical area is classed as built up.
Thomas Lainson, FRIBA was a British architect. He is best known for his work in the East Sussex coastal towns of Brighton and Hove, where several of his eclectic range of residential, commercial and religious buildings have been awarded listed status by English Heritage. Working alone or in partnership with two sons as Lainson & Sons, he designed buildings in a wide range of styles, from Neo-Byzantine to High Victorian Gothic; his work is described as having a "solid style, typical of the time".
Richard William Herbert Jones (1900–1965) commonly referred to as R. W. H. Jones, was the British architect responsible for the design of the Art Deco Saltdean Lido and the Grand Ocean Hotel in Saltdean, Sussex, England.
John Leopold DenmanFRIBA was an architect from the English seaside resort of Brighton, now part of the city of Brighton and Hove. He had a prolific career in the area during the 20th century, both on his own and as part of the Denman & Son firm in partnership with his son John Bluet Denman. Described as "the master of ... mid-century Neo-Georgian", Denman was responsible for a range of commercial, civic and religious buildings in Brighton, and pubs and hotels there and elsewhere on the south coast of England on behalf of Brighton's Kemp Town Brewery. He used other architectural styles as well, and was responsible for at least one mansion, several smaller houses, various buildings in cemeteries and crematoria, and alterations to many churches. His work on church restorations has been praised, and he has been called "the leading church architect of his time in Sussex"; he also wrote a book on the ecclesiastical architecture of the county.
Clayton & Black were a firm of architects and surveyors from Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. In a career spanning the Victorian, Edwardian and interwar eras, they were responsible for designing and constructing an eclectic range of buildings in the growing town of Brighton and its neighbour Hove. Their work encompassed new residential, commercial, industrial and civic buildings, shopping arcades, churches, schools, cinemas and pubs, and alterations to hotels and other buildings. Later reconstituted as Clayton, Black & Daviel, the company designed some churches in the postwar period.
Marine Gate is a large block of over 55's flats built in 1939 to the design of architects Wimperis, Simpson and Guthrie. It stands to the East of the English seaside resort of Brighton bordering Whitehawk and Roedean, and is situated in the Rottingdean Coastal ward overlooking Brighton Marina and Black Rock. Originally built with 105 flats, a restaurant and offices, internal reconfiguration has increased the number of flats to 132. The International/Modern-style building is situated in a clifftop position at the eastern border of Brighton. Its proximity to a now derelict gasworks resulted in it being damaged by bombs several times during World War II, to the extent that it was Brighton's most bombed building.
The Norfolk Hotel is a 4-star hotel in the seaside resort of Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. Designed in 1865 by architect Horatio Nelson Goulty, it replaced an earlier building called the Norfolk Inn and is one of several large Victorian hotels along the seafront. The French Renaissance Revival-style building, recalling E.M. Barry's major London hotels, is "tall, to make a show": the development of the passenger lift a few years earlier allowed larger hotels to be built. It is a Grade II listed building.
Horatio Nelson Goulty was an English architect. He designed several buildings in Brighton and was an important figure in the town's public affairs in the early Victorian era.
Prestonville is a largely residential area in the northwest of Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. It covers a long, narrow and steeply sloping ridge of land between the Brighton Main Line and Dyke Road, two major transport corridors which run north-northwestwards from the centre of Brighton. Residential development started in the 1860s and spread northwards, further from central Brighton, over the next six decades. The area is characterised by middle-class and upper-middle-class housing in various styles, small-scale commercial development and long eastward views across the city. Two Anglican churches serve Prestonville—one at each end of the area—and there are several listed buildings.
The English coastal city of Brighton and Hove has a long and varied history of libraries going back over 250 years. Subscription libraries were among the earliest buildings in the resort of Brighton, which developed in the late 18th century; by the 1780s these facilities, which were more like social clubs than conventional book-borrowing venues, were at the heart of the town's social scene. The Brighton Literary Society, its successor the Brighton Royal Literary and Scientific Institution and its rival the Sussex Scientific Institution between them established a "very fine collection" of publications by the mid-19th century, and these books were donated to the town when a public library was founded in 1871. Neighbouring Hove, originally a separate village, established its own public library in 1890.
Tower House is a former private house in the Withdean area of the English coastal city of Brighton and Hove. Built in 1902 for a former jeweller to King Edward VII, it remained in private ownership until it was converted into flats and a daycare centre in 1988. It is one of the few large houses and villas to survive in the high-class Withdean area—many were demolished in favour of blocks of flats after World War II—and it has been described as "Brighton's finest example of a grand Edwardian house". English Heritage has listed the building at Grade II for its architectural and historical importance.
