Seaside Hotels

The grand hotel is an icon of the British seaside. Occupying the most favoured spots on the prom, elaborate Victorian and later buildings maintain an air of refinement that harks back to an earlier age. This book tells their story.

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Grand seaside hotels dominate Britain’s seaside resorts with bold, largescale buildings, often magnificent examples of the most fashionable architectural style of the time. First emerging in the eighteenth century, their golden age came in the second half of the nineteenth, when a showpiece luxury hotel was a must-have for any successful seaside resort. These imposing Grands, Royals and Imperials, filled with every modern convenience of the period and containing opulent restaurants and ballrooms, are fascinating buildings that reflect the fortunes of those who built and visited them throughout the years.

Karen Averby takes us through the rise, the fall and the modern-day resurgence of the grand seaside hotel across the whole of the UK, from their exclusive and luxurious nineteenth-century beginnings, through their renaissance in the interwar years, decline in the 1970s as foreign package holidays became popular and their recent, more accessible refurbished form today.

This book is part of the Britain’s Heritage series, which provides definitive introductions to the riches of Britain’s past, and is the perfect way to get acquainted with seaside hotels in all their variety.