The Castle Hotel

This must have been taken around the late 1960s shortly before it was demolished, given that a Mini is shown in the picture. The site became the then new venue of Tesco, having relocated from its previous site in Wellington Place. And then later the company decided to expand and create superstores, causing problems for town centres business before returning to the very centres they had ravaged.

A fine old building but no longer viable as a hotel in the 1960s

Tesco, every little bit hurts!

Ronnie Corbett opened the new Tescos on november 30th, 1968.

So lets get this clear Hastings council decided to knock down a unique 200yrs old building that was quite beautiful and complimentary to the area, so what would of been so hard to convert it into flats? So now we have a really ugly building instead, that ruins the area. Any chance we could get tescos to rebuild it?

Unfortunately the economy of the time in the late 1960s was that the interior of the hotel was deteriorating, I assume as a result of less people visiting seaside towns who were able to afford to stay in such a building. At that time the provision of a 'large' supermarket was an advantage for the town given that it would be larger than the Co-op that was then situated in Queens Road that was I think then then largest food shop.

Tesco's, where my then girlfriend worked for a while has long gone from the town centre and the site is I think now occupied by a general store selling a variety of household and other goods. It was however a lovely building in its heyday

Any building can be restored if the heart is there to do it. The replacement is a travesty of what went before and something I can see daily from my window.

Used to work there as a waiter aged 14-15. Mum Irene worked in the grill room apply named ‘The Dog House ‘
Head waiter Jimmy Murray & Fred the very old wine waiter. Lovely building.