Page 25 - Bulletin 21

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which characterises the exterior is a relief to the eye. Dennis Edwards & Co., The Cape

Town Guide, (p. 107). (Figs. 1.18 & 1.19.)

Other reviews included:
Beyond all question the finest hotel in South Africa – Cape Argus.

Raises the standard of hotel accommodation to a proper level. – Cape Times.

In 1903 architect Robert Robertson designed a three-storey separate building attached to the

west side of the hotel. It was known as The Arcade, and continued Ransome’s art nouveau
design. In 1910 Parker & Forsyth introduced a Bioscope Theatre on the ground floor, which

seated over four hundred persons.

The hotel and The Arcade were demolished in 1965. Today the site is the Woolworth Tower

Block, a modernistic design, with the Longmarket Street entrance named CTC House.

The Palmerston Hotel

This was yet another art nouveau gem by George Ransome which was completed for

proprietor Louis Synter in 1890. In 1904 a new proprietor, Alfred Epstein, requested architect
Edward Austin-Cook to redesign Ramsone’s building. His design was the ultimate in

extravagant art nouveau. (Figs. 1.20 & 1.21.)

The hotel was described by Désirée Picton-Seymour in her book Victorian Building in South

Africa 1850-1910 p. 58 as: a delightful building on gin-palace lines with much decoration,
elaborate plaster and wood work and the exterior was turreted and bore the name of the

hotel in cast iron along the roof top.

The hotel later became the Regent Palace Hotel, and then Hotel Louis Botha. It was

demolished in 1967 for various Government buildings, including SARS and the Deeds
Office.