Identifying Edward Welby Pugin’s Furniture for the Granville Hotel: some observations and a theory

• Published in: The journal of the Decorative Arts Society 1850--the Present 2018-01 (42), p.8-21
• Main Author: Shutler, Paul A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0260-9568

Following his famous father’s untimely death in 1852, Edward Welby Pugin (1834-75) successfully ran the family architectural practice, restoring or designing more than one hundred Catholic churches and a handful of houses in the British Isles, Scandinavia, the United States and Western Europe. The building of the Granville Hotel in Ramsgate, Kent was originally conceived and designed by E. W. Pugin as a terrace of eight symmetrical holiday villas. However, it soon became E. W. Pugin’s financial and mental undoing. The furnishing of the hotel complex is the subject of this article. It has been generally assumed that E. W. Pugin manufactured all of his furniture in his own workshop in Ramsgate. Known as the South Eastern Works, it produced furniture to his designs not only for the Granville Hotel, but also for other commissions such as Scarisbrick Hall in Lancashire. However, contemporaneous comment in the local press suggests that the contents of the Granville Hotel were made both in Ramsgate and in London, with specific London firms being mentioned. E. W. Pugin was under financial strain when the hotel finally opened to paying guests in 1870, and he set about trying to capitalise on the new Granville designs. The emergence of two photographs dateable to before 1899 has allowed us to begin to clarify some of these attributions of the Granville furniture for the first time.