Big buildings

It is usually the case in this country, that a seaside resort will be full of buildings which no longer work, and Ryde is no exception. This building, on the seafront between Seaview and Ryde, with fine views of all the floating care homes steaming up and down the Solent on their way to and from Southampton, was once the Springvale Hotel. It had struggled along only until quite recently, maybe just a year or so ago, but is now in the hands of a builder and will presumably be converted into flats. Assuming that is that it counts as seaside heritage and demolition - which might well be a more sensible option - is not allowed.

Nearer Ryde, there are plenty of buildings, perhaps half the size of this one, roughly cubical with some steps up to the front door and three rooms wide by three rooms deep by three rooms tall making twenty seven in total. This not counting the sub-ground. On one of them we counted about that number of chimney pots, with up to eight to a chimney, which meant that a lot of coal was being carried up the stairs every winter morning. We wondered about how much things must have changed since the days when such a building was considered suitable for one family's occupation, as they clearly were at the time that they were built. Conversion into hotels and boarding houses came later.

Oddly, the Springvale Hotel does not seem to have many chimneys at all. On the other hand, it does appear to have been assembled from two matching, semi-detached cubes, cubes which started their lives as family homes, or at least as family summer homes. Perhaps let out by the season. No pets.

And it was the same with chimneys at our hotel, the Ryde Castle, the right hand half of which (as you face the main entrance from the road) was built back in 1840 or so, when one might have thought that it needed chimneys. And, to be fair, in an old engraving turned up by google, there were one or two one potters. Now the best it can do is the sort of tubular steel chimney used to vent a kitchen or a central heating boiler.

PS: in its days as a hotel, the Springvale Hotel used to have a board outside listing all the floating care homes due that day. But see reference 1 for those on a day last week.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/birthday-treat.html.