Benedict O’Looney Architects has won planning and listed building consent for a nine-storey extension to Bromley’s historic Royal Bell Hotel.

The grade ll building, designed by Royal Gold Medal-winning Ernest Newton in 1898, has been disused for much of the last decade despite being a key landmark in the south-east London town’s historic core. It will now be restored.

Built on the site of a 17^th-century posting inn, and praised by Lady Catherine de Bourgh in Pride and Prejudice, it was once Bromley’s social hub .

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