LONDON PARIS HOTEL - c1900 and 1942

The London & Paris hotel was still being used as offices after WW2. I believe demolition of the Hotel was about 1958. I have never been able to find an exact date but I have seen mention of the demolition being as late as 1963. But most references seem to favour the late 1950s. I think that although it was damaged in the air raids much damage was also done by troops billeted there. And due to the reduced traffic there was no need for a hotel early post war.

I think the Postcard view of the harbour dates from 1904. The photograph was taken by Levy & Sons, a Parisian photographers (hence the spelling mistake)  A company photographer visited Eastbourne and Seaford in 1904 and postcards of the views were produced in 1905.  It is highly likely that the photograph above dates from this time. 

A comment on the London and Paris Hotel :

If it be night time, we should recommend him strongly to stay there [on board of the steamer] ; for the steward provides an excellent cold super, superior to anything he can get, as a rule, in the hotel, which is conducted without much regard to the tastes of the thousands of foreigners who every year pass this way ». The Paris Way-Book : ed. By W. Blanchard Jerrold.- Paris, John Arthur ; London, Smart and Allen, 1867, p. 37

I found in another guide of the period that the L&P Hotel was moderately priced. I would be interrested to read other commentaries.
Considering that only a minority had the time and the money for a trip to France, it is surprising that the hotel was not of a higher standard.

Another negative appreciation on the London & Paris hotel found in the Times, Sept 2nd, 1861, p.7. Letter to the Editor : How not to go to Paris.

" Why 130 passengers are sentenced to sup off a large ham and a small piece of beef I could not learn. I passed throught Newhaven about two months ago and witnessed precisely the same squabble going between the inn waiters and the hungry passengers who were objecting to the same ham and the same undersone beef, and remonstrating against the same dearth of vegetables....................

I sincerely recommend all future travellers to abstain from travelling by the Dieppe route to Paris until they  are assured that they will receive better treatment from the authorities who manage the Brighton Railway and the Newhaven hotel.

"enormously large fat ham and a very small joint of nearly raw tepid beef".

My Great Uncle George was the Coxswain on the lifeboat the 'Michael Henry' around 1900.

Henry Atsbury Leveson wrote in The Hunting Grounds of the Old World (London, 1860)

"At half past 8 we arrived at Newhaven and put up at the London and Paris Hotel, where we found the people not the most civil in the world, and the sheets of our beds unquestionablu famp/ The refreshments were very so-so, but we found the charges extremely moderate". (2e edition, p. 446).

Travellers agree that moderate rates were the only good point of the L & P Hotel.