The Granville Hotel, Ramsgate

The Granville Hotel, Ramsgate, Kent, on the southeast coast of England, was a former hotel designed by Edward Welby Pugin, son of Augustus Pugin. The Granville was a hotel between 1869 and 1946 before being sold by proprietors Spiers & Pond. The building is now Granville House, a private residence containing 48 self-contained flats that are managed by Cockett Henderson. Granville House was Grade II listed on 16 October 1973. In 2010 the lease holders of Granville House gained the Right To Manage and are now responsible for looking after the building themselves. On 18 December 2012, at a public auction, the freehold of Granville House was purchased by Mr Eliasz Englander for £156,000. The Granville Cinema opposite, is named after the building.

After the death of Augusta Emma d'Este (later Lady Truro) on 21 May 1866, the remainder of the land from the Mount Albion Estate was sold off to developers. Business partners, Robert Sankey, John Barnet Hodgson and Edward Welby Pugin purchased a plot of land on Ramsgate`s east cliff for £9,250.

In 1867, they built an eight house terrace in the gothic style. These were substantial properties, with four floors and a basement. Each house had a private entrance. The houses were marketed as exclusive villas to be let for weeks at a time to wealthy visitors to Ramsgate who were expected to arrive at the nearby Ramsgate Sands station below the cliff.

The terrace, described by Catriona Blaker from her book - Edward Pugin and Kent, his life and work within the county, 2012: "Seen from the front, the main elevation of these very substantial five floor stock brick residences was Gothic – definitely an urban, modern Gothic, not even picturesquely asymmetrical. Each end was the same, grandly gabled, with carefully detailed stone balconies and a large and elegant Gothic window on the fifth floor, and there were bold structural bays and chimneys on the side elevations."

In 1869, the owners decided to convert the building into a hotel that was formally opened with an inaugural ball on 7 December 1869. The new hotel was named "The Granville" in honour of George Leveson Gower, 2nd Earl Granville.

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