MEM22359 - Valley of Rocks Hotel (Building)

One of the most prominent unlisted buildings is the Valley of the Rocks Hotel featured in many late 19th Century / 20th Century guidebooks, and although founded c.1810, is mainly mid-late 19th Century in an eclectic mix of styles and materials, including plain tile, slate, brick, stone render and tile-hanging. It is up to six-storeys in height and there are tall, mainly casement windows, conical roofed corners and ornate Corinthian capitals to the projecting porch. The side entrance to the hotel has ironwork. As long ago as 1898, guide books were describing the Valley of the Rocks Hotel as having a position “absolutely unequalled..in the South of England.” It is still the major landmark building in Lynton.[1] The Lynton Tithe Map shows the hotel's main buildings situated to the east of the site, with the west being a series of ranges with an open yard in the centre (presumably the stables etc). A spur-like range stuck out into the street at c. SS 7201 4946. The hotel is labelled by its present name. [2] The 1st Edition Ordnance Survey map shows the courtyard area mostly filled in, with the east range divided into a north and south section and with the spur still extant. The stables have moved across the road. [3] The 2nd Edition Ordnance Survey map shows the hotel mostly in its current form. [4] Early visitors to Lynton and Lynmouth found it very difficult to find accommodation in the settlements. William Litson was a Lynton wool dealer and, faced with the collapse of the wool trade with Barnstaple, he decided to set up a new business. In 1800 he opened a small inn on the current site of the Globe Inn (MEM22354), while also furnishing the adjoining cottages and letting them to visitors. His new business prospered and in 1807 he built the Valley of Rocks Inn to meet the growing demand. In 1808 an advertisment for the hotel described it as "a large and convenient house in a a desirable situation commanding most delightful sea and land prospects, which…[is] furnished with good beds and every other requisite and has… a stock of choice wine and liquors". Two adverts appeared in the North Devon Journal on 19th August 1833. The first was for the "Valley of Rocks Family Hotel", run by Litson and Son and established in 1800. It mentioned "the comfort and quiet of this establishment, (which has been recently enlarged and fitted up with separate suites of apartments)", with a "spacious coffee room.- post horses, chaises, cars, &c." An advert in the same paper for the Castle Hotel complained that the Valley of Rocks Inn placed men on the roads watching for carriages "with a variety of fabrications to induce families to go" there. The hotel appeared in an illustration dated 1859. [5] The building is mentioned in the 2019 Conservation Area Appraisal for Lynton. [6] The building was assessed as part of the 2018-19 rapid condition survey of Exmoor’s Listed Buildings, receiving a BAR score of 6. [7]