The Grand Hotel and Granville
Gardens c.1905.
In 1893, Wellesley Terrace, a block
of houses built in 1846, was converted into the Grand
Hotel. The hotel was in a lovely location, at right
angles to the Sea Front,
overlooking the Granville
Gardens. The Rifles Monument was erected in 1861
as a memorial to the men of the 60th Rifles killed
in the Indian Mutiny of 1857.
In September 1940 the hotel was destroyed
by a bomb. Newspaper journalists had been staying
at the hotel since the war
began and some of them were trapped in the wreckage.
One reporter, Guy Murchie of the Chicago Tribune,
telephoned his story to his paper and it appeared
in the next day's edition:
"I held my arms over my head instinctively.
Everything went black. I was fully conscious as the
floor fell away under my feet.... I expected to land
on the next floor, but, to my surprise, I kept falling
for many seconds.... Then I landed.... Gradually the
air grew lighter as the smoke and soot settled. And
I could see that I was tangled in a mass of timbers.
The remaining jagged walls towered upwards some 50
feet, and I was acutely aware of the possibility of
one of them falling on me. I climbed out of the debris,
elated to be alive."
