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25
Sept
Hotel plan for historic Harrogate pub
Plans have been submitted to convert the upper floors of The Alexandra pub in Harrogate into a 29-room hotel.
The four-storey building, which also has an attic, dates back to the 1800s. Several large screen TVs show live sport in the ground floor pub but the upper floors are largely vacant and derelict.
Owners Mitchells & Butlers Retail Ltd has applied to North Yorkshire Council to install five rooms on the first floor, 10 rooms on both the second and third floors and four rooms on the fourth floor.
If approved, hotel guests would use the main entrances and check in over the bar, according to a planning, design, access and heritage statement produced in support of the application.
A new staircase and lift would be installed and a doorway at the side of the building would also be used by guests as a secondary entrance.
The manager’s flat and commercial kitchen on the first floor would be retained.
The statement says:
The proposed works will bring back into use the upper floors of The Alexandra and contribute to the tourist and town centre economies. It will cause no harm to heritage interests and should be supported.”
The proposal will maintain, and secure, the long-term future of the public house, which is a valued community asset facility, as well as creating a facility that will support the tourist economy and the vitality and viability of the town centre. It will create more jobs, as the company will need to hire hotel reception staff as well as cleaners to manage the hotel, and the public house will need to take on more staff to cater for hotel guests.
Name changes
The Alexandra was originally built as a hotel called The Albion in the 19th century.
It was renamed in 1863 in honour of Alexandra of Denmark, the new Princess of Wales whose husband later became King Edward VII.
It ceased to operate as a hotel at around the outbreak of the Second World War.
The Alexandra was renamed Gladstone’s in 1984, and later the Rat and Parrot before reverting to the name The Alexandra in 2007.
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