The Granville Hotel, Ramsgate

After the death of Augusta Emma d'Este (Lady Truro) on 21 May 1866, the remainder of the land from the Mount Albion Estate was sold off to developers.

[1] Business partners Robert Sankey, John Barnet Hodgson and teh architect Edward Welby Pugin purchased a plot of land on Ramsgate's east cliff for £9,250.

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.

[4] Opened on 24 December 1870,[5] the baths, the "everflowing sea-water plunge", and hydropathic establishment were the main features of the hotel throughout its life.

[8] The hotel was purchased in 1877 by Edmund Francis Davis, a solicitor and business tycoon who twice contested the Isle of Thanet constituency for the Liberals.

[9] The front elevation was altered by the architect Horace Field in 1899, the Granville Tower was lowered and the inside of the building was extensively remodelled.

The Granville was a popular venue for ballroom dancing in the 1950s and 1960s, as William Hamilton had installed a sprung floor.

The centre-piece of the hall is a massive fireplace inscribed with the motto "pile on the logs to make the fire great".

[17] The bomb-damaged west end of the building was rebuilt as apartments in 2004 by Oakleigh Developments Ltd[13] and became Granville Court.

[18] On 18 December 2012, at a public auction, the freehold of Granville House was purchased by Mr Eliasz Englander for £156,000.