Anyone who knows the Metropole Hotel in Brighton will recognise the building below:  the central turret rising out of a pyramid roof, the cast iron balconies, the mansard roofs on the side pavilions and the dormer windows.  And if the image were in colour, we would also recognise the warm red of the brickwork.

But of course, the hotel above is not the Metropole Hotel in Brighton.  It is the Hôtel Bellevue, opened in 1884 in Puys-lès-Dieppe, a tiny seaside resort less than two miles east along the coast from Dieppe. Had Alfred Waterhouse, architect of the Brighton Metropole, seen the Hôtel Bellevue?  Had he been inspired by it?  For the Bellevue pre-dates the opening of the Metropole by six years.

The Hôtel Bellevue is no more.  It was demolished after being severely damaged in WW1.  It was replaced by the far less elaborate Hôtel Terrasse Plage in 1934.

There were, of course, many differences between the architecture of the Metropole and the Bellevue, but clearly, French design was fashionable in at least parts of England in the late 1880s.  The original appearance of the Brighton Metropole lasted until the developers’ vandalism of the 1960s removed the distinctive roofscape.  The 1937 postcard below, sent to an address in Queenstown, South Africa, marks a midway period in the history of the original hotel.

Alfred Waterhouse designed the Metropole Hotel in Brighton for Frederick Gordon.  Gordon was sometimes known as the ‘Napoleon of the Hotel World’, such was his acumen at spotting the right time, the right architect and the right place to build his hotels. Was it Gordon who asked Waterhouse to design the Metropole in the ‘French chateau’ style – or style renaissance as the French could call it?  Or had this form of architecutre become Waterhouse’s favourite by the 1880s?

Waterhouse was much criticised when the Brighton Metropole was completed in 1890.  How dare he put a redbrick building in amongst the white and cream stuccoed building of Brighton seafront. 

In the same year as the Brighton Metropole was opened, Gordon opened his Hôtel Métropole in Cannes.  Perhaps this hotel would have been more to the liking of Brighton people as it was in the more rounded Belle Époque style – and it was stuccoed and painted white. 

The late 1880s and early 1890s also saw the opening of Gordon Hotels in Eastbourne, Ryde (Isle of Wight), London and Monte Carlo.  The newcomer to the Gordon Hotels family in 1900 was the Hôtel Royal in Dieppe.

Five years after the Royal had opened, a certain lady called Germaine stayed in the hotel. She sent this postcard to her friend Thérèse Blanc at 123 rue du Ranelagh in the smart sixteenth arrondissment of Paris.

So far, the name of the architect of the Hôtel Royal remains elusive.

The Brighton Metropole and the Hôtel Royal had very different wars between 1914 and 1918.  In Brighton, the Metropole was full of civilian and military guests.  In Dieppe, the Royal was full of wounded military patients. 

In Brighton:

“Society and fashion were present on Sunday night at the Hotel Metropole.  Following the Recruiting Parade, numbers of people and dozens of officers finished the evening there, and there was attractive music and plenty of interesting people to watch.” Brighton and Hove and South Sussex Graphic 14 October 1915.

In Dieppe:

« Il y a quelques semaines … la croix de guerre était remis au zouave de 2^e classe Salomon Touitou … actuellement en traitement à l’hôpital 19 (Hôtel Royal) à Dieppe, » L’Univers israélite 8 juillet 1915

[“A few weeks ago, the Military Cross was presented to 2^nd class Zouave, Salomon Touitou … at present undergoing treatment in Hospital 19 (Hotel Royal) in Dieppe” L’Univers israélite newspaper 8 July 1915]

The Hôtel Métropole in Cannes was used for much the same purpose in 1917-19 when it became a temporary American military hospital. 

Did the Gordon Hotels voluntarily offer up the services of their French premises, or were they requisitioned?  That’s a question which remains unanswered at the moment

By the 1930s, Dieppe was not popular enough to support such a large hotel as the Royal.  In 1936, it was decided to divide the building into flats, or to use the delightful French expression: ll fut décidé de le saucissoner en appartements [to slice it up like a sausage]. The new apartments were given the name Castel Royal.  The choice of the Provençal (southern French) word castel meaning ‘small chateau or castle’ seems odd, but the name has stuck.

World War II saw Dieppe occupied by German forces.  To some extent, this protected the fabric of the town until 1942.  The disastrous Raid on Dieppe and neighbouring coastal villages was led by mainly Canadian troops.  Of the 5,000 who landed on 19 July, nearly 1,000 were dead by the end of the morning.  Perhaps the lucky ones were the 2,000 who were made prisoner. Proportional losses were recorded for the very much smaller British and American contingents.

That same day, 19 July, on the narrow beach of Puys-lès-Dieppe, half of the 550 strong Royal Regiment of Canada were killed by German gunfire:  the carnage was complete in less than two hours, between 5.05am and 6.30am.  The Hôtel Terrasse Plage did not survive WWII.  The block of flats on the site is, quite rightly, called Immeuble des Canadiens.

The Hôtel Métropole in Cannes suffered a worse fate than her “scalped” sister in Brighton. After a brief spell as a Catholic seminary from 1932,  the building was demolished in 1972 and a résidence (block of flats) was built on the site.

In the 2020s, the Google street view below shows that Castel Royal is looking splendid.

For an excellent account of Brighton Metropole in WWII see Judy Middleton’s blog.

And the final image is of the Hotel Metropole basking in its new glory as DoubleTree (2023)