Newquay’s Great Western Hotel stands close to the railway station and above the beach that shares its name. It opened in April 1879, shortly after passenger trains began reaching the town in 1876. Silvanus Trevail designed it while still a young architect.
The timing explains its place in Newquay’s growth. A railway made the journey easier; a hotel gave incoming visitors somewhere to stay. Together they helped turn access to the coast into a holiday business.
Designing a hotel is not the same as owning it or paying for it. Trevail’s youth is striking, but it should not be used as evidence that he personally financed the development. His career links this building with the Headland and other Cornish projects; the full article follows the hotel’s place in the resort that grew around the railway.
Sources
Source: https://thepassmoreedwardslegacy.org.uk/silvanus-trevail
Connected subjects
Read on
- The Hotel They Tried to Stop: The Headland and the Price of a Sea View
Before the Headland Hotel could sell anybody a peaceful sea view, there was a considerable argument about what should happen to the land underneath it. This was not a disagreement over the breakfast menu.
- Cornwall Built Railways for Rocks Before It Built Them for Tourists
Newquay’s first railway story starts with Treffry’s mineral network and the harbour: rails moved rock before they carried holidaymakers.
- There Was a Railway Running Out of Newquay Harbour
A load of ore could reach Newquay and still have a cliff to get down. Follow the horses, miners and winding machinery that completed the journey.
- The Newquay Hotel With a Lift Through the Cliff
Before Bertie’s and THE NICI, the Victoria offered guests a rather elaborate shortcut to the beach. Its lift connects several very different lives of the same Newquay building.
- The Hotel the Railway Built
A young Cornish architect, a newly reachable sea view, and a resort with more going on than its brochures could comfortably explain.