Exeter, Devon - Royal Clarence Hotel, Cathedral Yard, cars - postcard c.1930s

• Postcard

   

• Picture / Image:  Royal Clarence Hotel, Exeter [This is in Cathedral Yard] - damaged by fire a few years ago
• Publisher: none stated, maybe the hotel itself
• Postally used: no
• Stamp:  n/a
• Postmark(s): n/a
• Sent to:  n/a
• Notes / condition: 

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Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information (internal links may not  work) :

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The Royal Clarence Hotel is a hotel in Cathedral Yard, Exeter, Devon, England. It has been credited as the first property in England to be called a hotel. Since 2005 the 53-bedroom hotel[2] was branded as ABode Exeter.[3] The hotel along with surrounding buildings including 18 Cathedral Yard and The Well House Tavern were severely damaged by fire in October 2016. All of three damaged buildings are currently undergoing a major restoration. On 25 July 2017 restoration plans were unveiled by the hotelier Andrew Brownsword. The restoration work is being undertaken by construction consultants Thomasons, in partnership with Manchester architects Buttress, Historic England and Exeter City Council. On 6 August 2019, it was announced that Andrew Brownsword Hotels had put the site up for sale.[4] The reopening date is currently unknown.[5]

Before the Reformation, the land which was to become the site of the hotel was part of the accommodation for Exeter Cathedral's Vicars choral. The site was later leased to a variety of tenants until in March 1766 the Reverend John Lee of Lympstone assigned the lease of the premises that he held there to William Mackworth Praed (1747–1833).[6] Praed was a son of William Mackworth Praed, a lawyer and politician who had died in 1752.[7] At the time of the transfer, part of the premises leased by John Lee was occupied by an under-tenant, a French school master named Peter Berlon, and Praed engaged him to manage the planned development of the site. Praed acquired other adjacent premises too, including the freehold of a property half way along St Martin's Lane, and dilapidated property in High Street, which he redeveloped separately.[8] He also developed the adjacent building on the corner of St Martin's Lane for the Exeter Bank, of which he was one of the founding members, with John Duntze, Joseph Sanders and Daniel Hamilton.[9]

It appears that work proceeded quickly on the hotel site because in early September 1766 a newspaper article referred to there having been "an Assembly at Mr Berlon's New Room" accompanied by "some curious Fireworks in the Churchyard". In August 1767 there was a newspaper notice of an entertainment to take place at "Mr Berlon's new Assembly-Room". By March 1768 Berlon was advertising his business as "Berlon's Coffee-house" and in November that year he announced that he had "lately fitted lodgings, for the conveniency of those Gentlemen and Ladies who please to honour him with their Favours".[10]

In September 1770, Berton placed an advertisement for the business, describing it as "New Coffee-house, Inn, and Tavern, Or, The Hotel, In St. Peter's Church-yard, Exeter." This is possibly the first use of the word hotel in England.[11]

According to Alexander Jenkins, writing in 1806, the hotel provided "a commodious room for holding public balls, assemblies, concerts, &c.".[12] Jenkins further described it as:

a large and commodious Inn, with elegant apartments and accommodation for people of the first Quality, with a large assembly-room in which are held the Assize Balls, Concerts and Winter assemblies, of the most distinguished persons of the City and County. In the front is a neat Coffee-room: the situation of the Hotel is very pleasant, as it opens to the Parade, and commands a noble view of the Cathedral.[13]

It subsequently took various names, including the Cadogen Hotel, Thompsons Hotel, and Phillips Hotel.

The hotel became one of the leading coaching inns in Exeter. It was visited by Admiral Nelson in 1801,[14] and was renamed as the Royal Clarence Hotel after a visit by Adelaide, Duchess of Clarence in July 1827. Franz Liszt performed with six other musicians in two concerts at the hotel on 28 and 29 August 1840[15] (a blue plaque on the building, erected by Exeter Civic Society in 2013, commemorated that event[16]). Other visitors included Beatrix Potter in 1892, Thomas Hardy in 1915, and actors Clark Gable and Gary Cooper during the Second World War.[14]

Between 2000 and 2015, the hotel was co-owned and run by celebrity chef Michael Caines, who set up ABode with business partner Andrew Brownsword.[17] Brownsword bought the hotel in 2003 for £4.5 million.[2