Albert Hotel

From Historical Hastings


This article is a stub. You can help by expanding it.
The hotel as it appeared in 1881

The Hastings and St. Leonards Albert Temperance Hotel to give the establishment its full name opened on Tuesday the 15th of November 1881 and was situated on the north corner of Albert Road and Queen's Road. Canon Wilberforce laid the foundation stone for the Coffee Palace Hotel Company there in 1881. A seven-course meal was held at the opening event, chaired by the Rev. Dr. Cross DCL. The premises featured an east-west corridor on each of its five upper floors and had between thirty and forty apartments, with the main coffee room overlooking the Central Cricket Ground and Town Hall. The tables were marble topped and provided, together with the gas-lighting and other fixtures by Mr. G. J. Fellows of 42 & 43 St. Andrew's Road[1].

The Bicycle and Tricycle Club, which formed in 1876 was headquartered at the hotel towards the end of the 19th century[2].

In 1884 it went into liquidation with its shareholders complaining there was too much competition in the town for the temperance trade. The next owner gave up temperance and applied for a full licence in 1885[3], granted in 1886. Business dramatically increased when it started serving alcohol to customers from the Gaiety Theatre next door.

The licence was not renewed in 1888 because of opposition from the Globe Tavern two doors away. “This is not a normal hotel”, said the Globe manager, “it has been turned into an ordinary public house”. The magistrates noted that “there were the usual coloured glasses hung up around the bar, two barmaids and customers ‘tossing for beer’. The area is a perfect plum pudding of public houses”, they said. There were apparently 36 public houses within a quarter mile radius of the hotel.

The licence was granted again in August of that year on the conditions that the door from the billiard room to Russsell Street was to be closed up and the doorway from the bar to Albert Road was also to be sealed, with the bar removed; alcohol was only to be served with food[4]. By September, the case was again in front of the magistrates; it being stated that Mr Langley (the licensee at the time) had not complied with the directions given in the previous hearing - the bar continuing its trade as primarily a public house and not that of a restaurant. This time, the licence was again refused and the licensee gave an indication that he intended to appeal - the loss of the bar side of his business was crippling to him financially[5].

The Albert closed in 1892/3. It is noted in local history as the birth place of the Hastings Chess Club in 1882. The ​building​ was demolished for the widening of Albert Road in 1992/3.


Images[edit]

References & Notes

  1. ↑ British Newspaper Archive Hastings & St. Leonards Observer 19 November 1881 Pg. 0003
  2. ↑ British Newspaper Archive Hastings & St. Leonards Advertiser 27 September 1888 Pg. 0019
  3. ↑ British Newspaper Archive Hastings & St. Leonards Advertiser 27 August 1885 Pg. 0005
  4. ↑ British Newspaper Archive Hastings & St. Leonards Advertiser 27 September 1888 Pg. 0004
  5. ↑ British Newspaper Archive Hastings & St. Leonards Advertiser 30 August 1888 Pg. 0005
Retrieved from ‘https://historymap.info/index.php?title=Albert_Hotel&oldid=128899’