Britannia Adelphi Hotel
Encyclopedia
The Britannia Adelphi Hotel, formerly the Adelphi Hotel, is in Ranelagh Place, Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

, Merseyside
Merseyside
Merseyside is a metropolitan county in North West England, with a population of 1,365,900. It encompasses the metropolitan area centred on both banks of the lower reaches of the Mersey Estuary, and comprises five metropolitan boroughs: Knowsley, St Helens, Sefton, Wirral, and the city of Liverpool...

, England. The present building is the third hotel on the site, and has been designated by English Heritage
English Heritage
English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...

 as Grade II listed building.

The building is owned and managed by Britannia Hotels
Britannia Hotels
Britannia Hotels is a United Kingdom based hotel company with 37 hotels across the country. Britannia operates at the budget end of the market, with hotels varying in price and star ratings around the country...

. It contains 402 en suite bedrooms, conference and dining facilities, and a gymnasium.

History

The first hotel on the site was built in 1826 for the hotelier James Radley. It was built on the site of the former Ranelagh Gardens
Ranelagh Gardens, Liverpool
Ranelegh Gardens was the first open space for public recreation to be created in Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It was opened in 1722 and was modelled on Ranelagh Gardens in Chelsea, which was at that time just outside London. It contained a formal flower garden, and a number of separate areas...

, the first open space for public recreation in Liverpool. This hotel was replaced by another hotel in 1876, which was bought in 1892 by the Midland Railway
Midland Railway
The Midland Railway was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844 to 1922, when it became part of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway....

. The railway company replaced it between 1911 and 1914 with the present building, designed by Frank Atkinson
R. Frank Atkinson
Robert Frank Atkinson was a British architect.-Career:Atkinson was born in Liverpool and began his career as an articled apprentice to John Francis Doyle in the same city. He remained as Doyle's assistant for 6 years after completing his apprenticeship, before opening his own office in Liverpool...

. When opened, it was "regarded as the most luxurious hotel outside London".

Due to Liverpool being a major arrival and departure point for ocean liners during the early 20th century, the Adelphi served as the most popular hotel in the city for wealthy passengers before they embarked on their journey to North America. The RMS Titanic was registered in Liverpool (though it never visited the port) and the current Adelphi Hotel's Sefton Suite is an exact replica of the ill fated liner's First Class Smoking Lounge.

Guests at the hotel have included world leaders, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...

 and Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

. Artistes appearing at the Empire Theatre
Liverpool Empire Theatre
Liverpool Empire Theatre is located on the corner of Lime Street and London Road in Liverpool, Merseyside, England. The theatre is the second to be built on the site, and was opened in 1925. It has the largest two-tier auditorium in Britain and can seat 2,350 people...

, including Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...

, Laurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy were one of the most popular and critically acclaimed comedy double acts of the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema...

, Judy Garland
Judy Garland
Judy Garland was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years and for her renowned contralto voice, she attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage...

, Roy Rogers
Roy Rogers
Roy Rogers, born Leonard Franklin Slye , was an American singer and cowboy actor, one of the most heavily marketed and merchandised stars of his era, as well as being the namesake of the Roy Rogers Restaurants franchised chain...

 and his horse Trigger
Trigger (horse)
Trigger was a palomino horse, made famous in American Western films with his owner/rider, cowboy star Roy Rogers.-Pedigree:...

 have also stayed at the hotel.

Exterior

The hotel is constructed in Portland stone
Portland stone
Portland stone is a limestone from the Tithonian stage of the Jurassic period quarried on the Isle of Portland, Dorset. The quarries consist of beds of white-grey limestone separated by chert beds. It has been used extensively as a building stone throughout the British Isles, notably in major...

. It has seven stories, and its entrance front contains eleven bays
Bay (architecture)
A bay is a unit of form in architecture. This unit is defined as the zone between the outer edges of an engaged column, pilaster, or post; or within a window frame, doorframe, or vertical 'bas relief' wall form.-Defining elements:...

. The central three bays of the ground floor comprise the entrance, which is enhanced by columns. The windows on the first floor are round-headed; the rest of the windows are rectangular. In the central three bays of the fourth and fifth floors is a recessed balcony with Ionic
Ionic order
The Ionic order forms one of the three orders or organizational systems of classical architecture, the other two canonic orders being the Doric and the Corinthian...

 columns. There are similar columns on these floors in the second and tenth bays. Above the sixth floor is a cornice
Cornice
Cornice molding is generally any horizontal decorative molding that crowns any building or furniture element: the cornice over a door or window, for instance, or the cornice around the edge of a pedestal. A simple cornice may be formed just with a crown molding.The function of the projecting...

 with a balustrade
Baluster
A baluster is a moulded shaft, square or of lathe-turned form, one of various forms of spindle in woodwork, made of stone or wood and sometimes of metal, standing on a unifying footing, and supporting the coping of a parapet or the handrail of a staircase. Multiplied in this way, they form a...

.

Interior

The public rooms contain columns, marble
Marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...

 panelling, and coffer
Coffer
A coffer in architecture, is a sunken panel in the shape of a square, rectangle, or octagon in a ceiling, soffit or vault...

ed arches. The Central Court is top-lit, and contains pink marble pilaster
Pilaster
A pilaster is a slightly-projecting column built into or applied to the face of a wall. Most commonly flattened or rectangular in form, pilasters can also take a half-round form or the shape of any type of column, including tortile....

s, glazed screens, and French doors opening into restaurants on its sides. Beyond this is the Hypostyle Hall, containing Empire-style decoration and four Ionic columns. Beyond this is the Fountain Court.

Adelphi Hotel in media

In Jules Verne's
Jules Verne
Jules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...

 novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is a classic science fiction novel by French writer Jules Verne published in 1870. It tells the story of Captain Nemo and his submarine Nautilus as seen from the perspective of Professor Pierre Aronnax...

Chapter 1.8, Professor Aronnax describes the interior of the submarine as similar to the Adelphi Hotel.
The lounge was used in the 1981 TV series Brideshead Revisited
Brideshead Revisited (TV serial)
Brideshead Revisited is a 1981 British television serial produced by Granada Television for broadcast by the ITV network. The teleplay is based on Evelyn Waugh's novel Brideshead Revisited...

as the interior of an ocean liner. In 1997, the hotel was the subject of a BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 documentary TV series, Hotel
Hotel (documentary)
Hotel was a 1997 eight-episode BBC "fly on the wall" production that followed the general day to day running of a hotel giving viewers a rare glimpse of life behind the scenes of the Britannia Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool. The series first aired 3 November 1997 on BBC One with the first episode...

.

In November 2010 the hotel received a very poor report following a hygeine inspection by Liverpool City Council and enforcement action was threatened if improvements were not made. This resulted in the hotel general manager being removed from his post. A subsequent inspection reported that things were "much improved".

External links

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