Desk Notes No.16
A very Victorian fantasy
Dear friends,
“She used to sit long hours on the beach gazing intently on the waves as they chafed with perpetual motion against the pebbly shore.” Elizabeth Gaskell.
Perched atop the cliff in the seaside town of Cromer, Norfolk, is a fantasy in red brick — a grand hotel modelled on the French Château de Chambord. Drenched in the faded glamour of the nineteenth century, its undulating silhouette of pyramids and domes greets visitors with unexpected majesty. Stone columns and revolving doors escalate to an octagonal tower with elaborate copper roof, echoed to left and right. I imagine guests watching the tide roll in through the white-painted, Dutch gabled dormer windows. Others, through large sashes with cast iron balconies. To cross the mosaic floor of flowers, foliage and dreamy lettering is to enter another world — the Hotel de Paris.
Oscar Wilde stayed here in 1892 while he wrote A Woman of No Importance; Alfred Lord Tennyson signed the guestbook in 1877. The town is steeped in literary history. There are references to Cromer in Jane Austen’s Emma and Elizabeth Gaskell’s North & South. When Clement Scott described the town as “poppy land,” he helped to launch it as a busy Victorian holiday resort. Arthur Conan Doyle was even inspired by the legend of the Black Shuck (on the nearby cliffs of Beeston Bump) when writing The Hound of the Baskervilles. The romance of the place is intoxicating.
It’s almost disappointing to discover that, in those days, the Hotel de Paris looked very different. Built in the 1820s, its regency facade was simpler, symmetrical, but no less imposing. But time passed and luxury faded. By the late 1870s, at the time of Tennyson’s stay, mixed reviews were beginning to appear in the guestbook:
“Much pleased with the excellence of the cooking, the bell ropes considered as ornament are not altogether satisfactory and as articles of utility are more decidedly inefficient… The doors moreover are remarkably averse to remaining closed.”
These imperfections — the epitome of the British seaside experience — only make the place more seductive. It was not until 1894 that owner Alex Jarvis employed architect George John Skipper to extend the hotel into neighbouring buildings, to modernise the bedrooms, and redesign the facade that we see today. Other nearby hotels from this era — the Grand Hotel, the Cliftonville, the Marlborough, the Hotel Metropole — have all been lost. The Hotel de Paris stands alone, resolute, a relic of the Great British holiday. A monument to the bustling age of the ‘Great Eastern’ and ‘Midland & Great Northern’ railways. Todays, as it fades into nostalgia, I admire it from the pier. One day I will wake up inside.
Regular readers might notice that this newsletter is incomplete. Unfortunately my computer died this week, taking with it everything I had prepared for today’s edition. In the wake of the technological disaster I reached for something comforting — my favourite book, Jane Eyre. Technology might fail, but Charlotte Brontë never lets you down.
Wishing you all a wonderful summer. See you in August.
Thank you for reading. If you haven’t already, please subscribe for free to receive new posts direct to your inbox and support my work.
This month’s featured image is my own photograph of the Hotel de Paris, Cromer, Norfolk.
Reading your description of the Hotel de Paris I could almost see myself standing there. Sounds like a wonderful place for a holiday. I hope you can make it some day and that your computer is back to work soon.
I am so sorry about your computer. I feel terrible for you because I understand. I just finished re-reading Jane Eyre. And your photograph is beautiful. Frame-worthy.