Grand Hotel, Littlestone 1973

Introduction

The photograph on this page of Grand Hotel, Littlestone 1973 by John Baker as part of the Geograph project.

The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.

There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk

Grand Hotel, Littlestone 1973

Image: © John Baker Taken: 4 Feb 1973

The hotel and other buildings along the sea front at Littlestone were built in the 1880s by Henry T Tubbs. This is a picture of the Grand Hotel in 1955 in the Francis Frith collection https://www.francisfrith.com/littlestone-on-sea/littlestone-on-sea-the-parade-c1955_l327017 After the hotel had been demolished, a building known as Grand Court was erected on the site. It is comprised of residential apartments. Beyond the hotel, the nearer of the two large houses was Claverley House, which has been demolished. Claverley House was the first property to be constructed on the seafront, and was built for Sir Robert Perks, who helped Henry Tubbs develop the Littlestone estate. It was named after Perks’ main Chislehurst residence (I am indebted to Keith Swallow for this information). Claverley House still stands in Chislehurst at 193, Lubbock Road Image and can be found on the London Borough of Bromley’s website under ‘planning’, as there have been several applications relating to the house over the years It was once the home of James Edward White, who, with his wife Sheree and baby, had lived at flat four on the ground floor of Claverley Mansion, Grand Parade, Littlestone-on-Sea for nearly 12 months without any shadow of suspicion that he was a famous wanted man. He stayed in the flat in the name of Bob Lane, visited local shops and sometimes nearby public houses. He was arrested by local police on 21 April 1966 and subsequently charged at Aylesbury Police Station with "conspiring to rob the mail and robbing the mail with other persons and being armed with offensive weapons". He had been wanted by the police in connection with the Great Train Robbery (which had taken place on 8 August 1963) http://www.topfoto.co.uk/imageflows/preview/t=topfoto&f=0150328 Two books, one entitled “The Romney Marsh Coastline from Hythe to Dungeness” by David Singleton ISBN 978-07509-4849-4' on page 66 and the other entitled ‘Littlestone Golf Club 1888-1988’ ISBN 0-9512725-0-0 on page 13 (which also mentions that the house was still standing at the time the book was published in 1988), both spell Claverley as Claverly.

Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0

Image Location

coordinates on a map icon
Latitude
50.980657
Longitude
0.967242