Description

SD 4761 SE
1685-1/8/223

LANCASTER
PENNY STREET (east side)
Alexandra Hotel

GV

11/09/90

II
Hotel. Dated 1902. Probably by Austin and Paley, in a Northern Renaissance style. Sandstone ashlar, and slate roofs with prominent chimney stacks in various positions. Deep L-shaped plan on the corner with Thurnham Street. The main entrance is to Penny Street, with secondary entrances to Thurnham Street, where the facade is symmetrical.

Three storeys and eight bays on Penny Street, with five bays to Thurnham Street. There are bands above the plinth and between ground and first floors, and a sill band and cornice on the first floor; this runs all around with two flush bands of red sandstone above. All windows have segmental heads. The facade to Thurnham Street has a wide centre, projecting slightly between raised quoins and containing a two storey canted bay window whose three lights have rusticated segmental lintels; above is a tall Dutch gable, flanked by octagonal turrets and containing a pair of similar windows, set between pilasters and under a segmental cornice. On either side is a lower three storey bay, the one to the left containing an entrance under a canopy bearing the name 'ALEXANDRA HOTEL' in stained glass, followed by a two storey bay which is canted back. On the left this elevation links to the Penny Street frontage and has, on the first floor, under a low strapwork gable, a mullioned and transomed window with stone balcony.

The Penny Street facade culminates on the right in a tall gabled bay, generally similar to the one on Thurnham Street except that it contains on the ground floor a canopied doorway, like that on Thurnham Street, and flanked by two narrow windows. On the far left this facade has on the ground floor two altered shop fronts, with a centrally-placed canted oriel between the two windows above. The central two bays have on the ground floor a doorway leading to the Alexandra Hall on the first floor and a window, with two pairs of transomed windows under arched hoodmoulds on the first floor, and two pairs of windows on the second floor.

INTERIOR: the Hall has seven bays, articulated by semi-octagonal pilasters and free Corinthian capitals, with an apse at the east end, and a barrel-vaulted ceiling carried on ribs with heavily moulded plasterwork.

Listing NGR: SD4776061307

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26489663

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Somerset: North and Bristol: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Churches: An Architectural Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990
• 
  Period property manual, victorian house manual 2 books collection set by ian rock
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)