King's Road

Buildings of interest: Part I

Reproduced with permission from the Encyclopaedia of Brighton by Tim Carder, 1990

Please note that this text is an extract from a reference work written in 1990.  As a result, some of the content may not reflect recent research, changes and events.

b) OTHER BUILDINGS OF INTEREST: The King's Road actually begins behind the Queen's Hotel at East Street , where no.6, Dolphin Cottage, is an unusual early survivor in this part of the town, but is accessible only via a private passage. At the corner of Little East Street stands Dr Brightons.  Formerly the Star and Garter Hotel, it was dubbed Dr Brightons in the nineteenth century and the name has stuck; the proprietor posted a notice on the wall giving the 'consulting hours' and listing the 'prescriptions of the finest quality' which were available inside. The hotel has played host to many famous people, including Winston Churchill, Jack Dempsey, Charlie Chaplin, Richard Burton, and the Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII), and dates back to at least 1785 when twin Irish giants were exhibited there. In front of the original bow-fronted building stood a capstan which was removed in 1827 to make way for the construction of the Grand Junction Road. This action provoked the last major argument between the town's fishermen and other inhabitants {15,123}.
Between the Old Ship and West Street stand some impressive but mixed five- and six-storey buildings of the early to mid nineteenth century. No.39 for instance, on the Ship Street corner, has much decoration in the form of shell motifs, urns and composite capitals. Nos.42-43, faced with black glazed mathematical tiles, date from 1813. No.50, the Argylepublic house, has a number of figurehead decorations.
At the corner of West Street is the Sheridan Hotel, a highly attractive, six-storey building with much terracotta decoration on both facades. It was built in 1882 as the fashionable Orleans residential club, and in 1898 became the VictoriaHotel {24,83}. On the opposite promenade stands the former summer tourist information bureau, a delicate ironwork rotunda built as a promenade shelter in 1887; a shelter hall was constructed on the Lower Esplanade below at the same time {24,115}.
One of the most famous establishments of King's Road was Muttons Hotel and Restaurant, opened by William Sexton Mutton between West Street and Russell Street in the 1840s. Almost an institution of Brighton society, it closed in 1929 and Kingswest was later built on the site, but it is remembered in Cuthbert Bede's novel, Matins and Muttons {3}. At the corner of the former Russell Street once stood the Palladium Cinema. Built on the site of the Whitehall Livery Stables, it opened on 29 October 1888 as the Alhambra Opera House and Music Hall, and films were shown on the bill from 1897. On 6 April 1912 it reopened as the Grand Cinema de Luxe or Palladium Cinema, and a year later the last variety performance was given. Holding 1,200 people, the cinema was designed by Frank Matcham and had a lavish interior, a highly decorated exterior with balustrades, cupolas, statues and ironwork canopy, and a roof which could be opened in hot weather. Sound equipment was installed in July 1929, and in 1936 it was given a new Art Deco facade and became known briefly as the Odeon until the West Street Odeon opened the following year. The Palladium closed in May 1956 and the site now lies under the Brighton Centre {68,68a}.

Any numerical cross-references in the text above refer to resources in the Sources and Bibliography section of the Encyclopaedia of Brighton by Tim Carder.