Rooms with a view - hotels spring up in Square

He writes. That Warrior Square should host a number of hotels and boarding houses was inevitable. Tastes change and these large buildings were no longer required by the wealthy tenants and their retinues and were too big for most families and had to be re-purposed.

Some were converted into flats and many became hotels and boarding houses.

The square was numbered from the seafront, with odd numbers on the west and evens on the east. No 1 was the East Sussex Club and no 79 at Warrior Gardens, just north of St Columba’s Presbyterian Church that was destroyed in the last war. The eastern side ran from No 4 to 92 with Warrior Square Terrace running across the top of the square.

The best known hotels were the Edinburgh on the western lower corner of the upper square (much later renamed the Marlborough) and on the opposite Corner the Warrior House (later the Warrior). These were the most prominent and amongst the first to become hotels.

The Adelphi on the western side was formed by joining together five houses, numbers 37 – 45, Some hotels were formed by joining two houses together but most of the rest remained as single houses and most had postcards made for their guests and to promote their businesses.

The Crantock at No 59, Gayton at 61, Lyndhurst at 63 and Lancaster House were all next-door neighbours.

It is interesting that the majority of these hotels were run by women, ‘Maiden Ladies’ and widows no doubt and as such contributed heavily to the local economy.

When the advertisements from 1923 appeared only property owning women over 30 had been able to vote, the franchise being extended in 1918 and before that ‘taxation without representation’ had led to the women’s suffrage movement with its members, in the south at least, mostly well-off and middle class. It wasn’t until 1928 that women were able to vote on the same terms as men.

All illustrations throughout this series are from Ion Castro’s own collection and he can make available copies of many of the historic images used in this series. There’s more local history on Ion’s website, www.historichastings.co.uk or contact him [email protected].

Captions:

22 Warrior Square.

22 Warrior Square, right next door to the Warrior House Hotel was described as a “First Class Apartment House” and shown here on a card posted in October 1905.

1885 ads

Pike’s Street Directory for 1885 included these adverts for hotels in Warrior Square and near vicinity.

Abbotsford ad.

The Abbotsford Hotel, 31 Warrior Square, advertised in the Hastings Handbook for 1923

Adelphi ad

The Adelphi, nos. 37-45 Warrior Square from the Hastings Handbook for 1923. note “Winter Inclusive Tariff from 3Gns (£3.15) weekly, increasing to 3½ Gns in the summer. The Adelphi boasted an attached garage (this would have been in Western Road). Note the tram on the seafront. Hotels such as the Queens and Albany in central Hastings made a point of noting that they were NOT on a tram route!

Clevedon Court Hotel.

This 1950’s multiview postcard from the Clevedon Court Hotel, 51 – 53 Warrior Square shows the hotel, its interior and nearby attractions and features a manually corrected telephone number.

Gayton Hotel.

The Gayton Hotel, at 61 Warrior Square in 1913, the Lyndhurst can be seen on the right

Lancaster.

The Lancaster House Hotel, 65 Warrior Square, early last century

Lyndhurst.

“Lyndhurst Boarding Establishment” 63 Warrior Square, Posted August 1907 with the staff posing on the steps, the Lancaster Hotel can be seen on the right.

Riviera etc.

Riviera, Gayton and Portland Hotels, as advertised in the Hastings Handbook for 1923, the Riviera boasted “Electric Light Throughout” and three guineas (£3.15) seems to have been the going rate, this would have been for a week!

Warrior & Edinburgh ad.

This ad for the Warrior and Edinburgh (later called the Marlborough Hotels appeared in the Hastings Handbook for 1923, both hotels were jointly run for the next 50 years.

Warrior Square 106.

This pre-war postcard features the Edinburgh Hotel, The front of St Columba’s Church can be seen at the end of the terrace with the Royal Concert Hall / Elite Cinema opposite. Magnification shows the vehicle in the middle of the square is a Southern Railway delivery truck and the notice in the foreground says “Games not allowed by the public on these lawns”.

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