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Figure 2: View of Bank Hey Street with the Palatine Hotel in the foreground and the Woolworth Building
behind, 1950. Image retrieved from http://www.amounderness.co.uk/feldmans_theatre_blackpool.html
The case was eventually settled on 19th
February 1937 for the sum of £4000
compensation to be paid to the Palatine
Hotel and Building Co. Ltd. plus costs
and expenses. A letter, most likely from F.
W. Woolworth & Company Ltd. solicitors
Lovell, White & King, to Best a few days
later appears to suggest that this was far
more than the £1800 F. W. Woolworth &
Company Ltd. were recommended to pay,
no doubt due to the mounting evidence
against the Plaintiff’s case. “This is a
good deal more than I was prepared to
recommend but no doubt they thought it
better to avoid piling up costs by fighting,
especially as there must be some doubt as
to whether they would be able to complete
their building.”
made, a local newspaper ran an article on
the extensive changes made to the hotel’s
saloon bar. It appears as though the hotel
proprietors foresaw the need to keep up with
the changing aesthetics of the time, and the
saloon bar and lounge were transformed
into “an arresting example of the modern
trend in architecture” in just seven weeks
(‘Extensive changes at Palatine’, 1936).
Nearly every aspect of the bar was enlarged
and modernised with the latest fittings and
materials that would have been expected
of a sophisticated rendezvous at the time.
“The service bar is built in sycamore, too,
ebony relieving the wood, and equipment
includes a Frigidaire and a conditioning
plant” (ibid.).
Further improvements were already being
planned for the hotels’ other facilities,
including “grill-room requirements” in
the dining room and “redesigning the
lower ground-floor bar”. All these modern
alterations were indicative of a desperate
need to maintain the interest of a changing
clientele and keep up with the evolution
of Blackpool’s rapidly evolving town
centre; “these are progressive days at the
Palatine. This scheme is indicative of them”
(‘Extensive changes’, 1936). It was also
The construction of the Woolworth’s Building
was in fact completed soon after the rapid
settlement in mid-February, most likely due
to the impending start of the holiday season
in April; F. W. Woolworth & Company Ltd.
had clearly decided it better to cut their
losses now and profit from the crowds to
descend on Blackpool that summer.
Renovating the Palatine Hotel
Just a few months before the claim was
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