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The Norfolk Hotel (currently branded as the Mercure Brighton Seafront Hotel, and previously as the Ramada Jarvis Hotel Brighton and other names) is a 4-star hotel in the seaside resort of Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. Designed in 1865 by architect Horatio Nelson Goulty, it replaced an earlier building called the Norfolk Inn and is one of several large Victorian hotels along the seafront. The French Renaissance Revival-style building, recalling E.M. Barry's major London hotels, is "tall, to make a show": the development of the passenger lift a few years earlier allowed larger hotels to be built. It is a Grade II listed building. ==History== West Street formed the western limit of development in Brighton until the end of the 18th century. At that time, the town was growing from a small fishing and agricultural settlement into a fashionable seaside resort. From 1800 on, seafront land that was formerly part of the West Laine was sold off in parcels to speculative builders. Some large-scale residential development took place, but it was only after 1820—when the road running parallel to the beach was widened and straightened to form a seafront promenade called Kings Road—that the area became easily accessible. The hotels, lodging houses and inns built along this stretch of road became the most popular and exclusive in the town at that time. An inn and hotel called the Norfolk Arms was built west of Bedford Square in or before 1824—the year it was first listed in the ''Baxter's Directory of Brighton''. (The square itself, the second such development in Brighton, was built in stages between 1801 and 1818.)〔 Between 1828 and 1830, the inn became famous for its association with Edward Law, 1st Earl of Ellenborough and his wife Jane Digby, Lady Ellenborough; in 1830 there was a scandal when they divorced as a result of Lady Ellenborough's affair with Prince Felix of Schwarzenberg. ''Brighton!! A Comic Sketch'', a poem written in that year, referred to the building satirically: "But ladies, use, when you next come / The ''Schwarzenberg'' Hotel". By 1841, though, its reputation was restored: a guidebook described it as "a capital family hotel, which has long enjoyed the patronage of many persons of rank and distinction".〔 Architecturally, it had Classical overtones: Ionic columns supported a balcony and veranda across a four-storey central bay with three-storey flanking sections. The 1860s was a time of innovation in hotel building and architecture.〔 By the mid-19th century, staying in hotels had become much more popular than renting a large house for several months, which had been the norm for Brighton's wealthy visitors over the previous century. The Royal Albion and (original) Bedford Hotels of the 1820s were smaller-scale early examples, but only with the development of the passenger lift could they be built on a grand scale. One of Britain's first lifts—a water-powered "ascending omnibus", as it was called—was fitted in the newly built Grand Hotel on Kings Road in 1864. The following year, the Norfolk Arms was completely rebuilt, retaining nothing of its original form. Architect Horatio Nelson Goulty was commissioned for the job; an important figure in public life in Brighton, he was one of the founders of the Extra Mural Cemetery in 1850 and later in the 1860s designed Congregational churches in Newhaven and Hove. Goulty designed the building (now solely a hotel rather than an inn, and renamed the ''Norfolk Hotel'' accordingly) in a similar style to the Grand,〔 albeit "slightly more florid".〔 The author of ''Moorecroft's Guide'' (1866), a guidebook about the resort, called the rebuilt hotel "more beautiful than any other building in Brighton"〔〔 despite offering mild criticism of the Grand's very similar architecture.〔 As originally built, the Norfolk was much smaller than the Grand, with 64 bedrooms arranged over five floors〔 compared to the latter's 150 bedrooms and eight storeys. Nevertheless, it was one of the major hotels of Victorian-era Brighton, which is "one of the few places in Britain where ... grand hotels of the European model can be seen".〔 Along with the Grand and the nearby Metropole (1890), it was one of the "great show hotels on the front", at which only wealthy visitors would have stayed; the thousands of working-class holidaymakers would have used the poorer lodging-houses in less favourable locations. The building passed into the ownership of AVP Industries in the 20th century. The company sought permission to demolish it and replace it with flats in the 1960s, but after this was not granted it sold the hotel in 1969.〔 Under the name ''Norfolk Resort Hotel'', the building was listed at Grade II on 20 August 1971. Early in the 1980s, £2 million was spent on refurbishment, including the opening of an indoor swimming pool and the creation of a lake surrounded by additional rooms, both in 1985. A nightclub called Rafters also occupied the roof space at this time.〔 The hotel was later taken on by the Ramada Jarvis chain. It still had that identity in 2010,〔 but after the company went into liquidation the Accor hotel group acquired it in October 2011 as part of a deal to buy 24 former Ramada Jarvis hotels. These were rebranded under the Mercure name, and the Norfolk Hotel is now known as the Mercure Brighton Seafront Hotel. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Norfolk Hotel, Brighton」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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