John Sansom was the Liskeard-based architect of Newquay’s Hotel Victoria. Work began in 1897 and the hotel opened on 1 June 1899, during the town’s expansion as a seaside resort.

His work also included the Porthminster Hotel at St Ives. The Victoria offered a particularly ambitious coastal convenience: a lift connected the hotel with a lower passage through the cliff towards the beach. Sansom’s building belongs alongside Silvanus Trevail’s hotels in the story of Cornwall’s visitor economy, but the two architects and their commissions should remain distinct.

Sources

Source 1: https://newquaymuseum.org/snapshots-of-newquay/hotel-victoria-newquay/ Source 2: https://hotelvictoria-consultation.co.uk/the-site/

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    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.

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