- Source: Bulkeley Hotel
The Bulkeley Hotel stands on the seafront in Beaumaris, Anglesey, Wales. It was designed by the architectural partnership of Joseph Hansom and Edward Welch for the Beaumaris Corporation. The development was a central part of the corporation's plans to reposition Beaumaris as a fashionable seaside resort in response to its declining maritime trade. It is designated a Grade I listed building, and remains in operation.
History
The town and castle of Beaumaris were created in the late 13th century as part of the Conquest of Wales led by Edward I. Planned in the 1280s, and constructed from 1295 by Edward's master builder, James of St George, the settlement replaced the historic Welsh capital of Llanfaes. Beaumaris's location, and natural harbour, encouraged maritime trade and in the Middle Ages the town flourished as a port and the customs hub for North-West Wales. By the early 19th century this trade was in decline and the town's council sought to reinvent Beaumaris as a seaside resort. A visit to the town by Princess Victoria in 1832 saw the Victoria Terrace named in her honour and the princess and her mother, the Duchess of Kent, stayed at the Bulkeley Hotel.
Later additions to the hotel were made by P. Shearson Gregory at the very end of the 19th century, and in the 1930s the architect Sidney Colwyn Foulkes extended the building.
Architecture and description
The hotel is a five bay, three-storey block in a Neoclassical design. The construction material is limestone ashlar. Richard Haslam, Julian Orbach and Adam Voelcker, in their 2009 edition Gywnedd, in the Buildings of Wales series, call it "the finest of its date in Wales". The hotel is a Grade I listed building. The forecourt wall and gate piers are separately listed at Grade II.
Notes
References
Sources
Haslam, Richard; Orbach, Julian; Voelcker, Adam (2009). Gwynedd. The Buildings of Wales. New Haven, US and London: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-14169-6. OCLC 1023292902.
External links
Media related to The Bulkeley Hotel, Beaumaris at Wikimedia Commons