Features / Grosvenor Hotel
The long and sorry saga of the Grosvenor Hotel
There is a famous scene in Radio On, Chris Petit’s cult road movie from 1979, that focuses on a window in the Grosvenor Hotel as a car drives over the flyover that used to take traffic from Temple Way to Redcliffe Street on a structure like something out of Scalextric.
The flyover was only built to be temporary but lasted for three decades until it was taken down in 1998.
The Grosvenor Hotel could soon also be demolished following a devastating fire which broke out on Tuesday night and which Avon Fire & Rescue Service say began on the ground floor of the building.
is needed now More than ever
Once one of Bristol’s grandest hotels, the five-storey building opened on what was then Victoria Street in 1875, with its 70 rooms specifically catering for passengers using nearby Temple Meads.
Like much of Bristol, the Grosvenor has a connection with Brunel, with the hotel being designed by his former assistant, the architect SC Fripp, who also designed the BRI chapel.
A railway bridge went directly next to the Grosvenor Hotel many years before the infamous flyover was built – photo: Bristol Archives
Generations of older Bristolians will remember celebrating happy occasions in the Grosvenor, which was extended in the 1930s to provide more space for both functions and bedrooms.
But the good times did not last and in the late 1980s, the hotel became a bed and breakfast for the homeless before closing for good in 1993 and in recent years only lived in by squatters, including Tom who gave Bristol24/7 a tour of the building back in March.
The view from one of the top floor rooms of the former Grosvenor Hotel – photo: Martin Booth
Some of the stairs inside before the fire were safer than others – photo: Martin Booth
So why was the former Grosvenor Hotel allowed to deteriorate to such a sorry state that even before Tuesday night’s fire, the best case scenario for it was to be demolished?
The answer to this involves a combination of an unscrupulous owner, a sham student housing development and council inaction.
On Wednesday, many floors of the Grosvenor appeared to have collapsed as well as much of the roof. The building itself was still standing; ever the survivor. But for how much longer?
Main photo: Bristol Archives
Read next:
- Derelict hotel devastated by huge fire
- Meet the only resident of what was once Bristol’s grandest hotel
- Historic pub to be reopened by new owners
- 18 historic photographs of Bristol’s hotels
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