This week, it was announced that The Grand has been bought by a large hotel chain. 

Fattal Group, owner of Leonardo Hotels, announced on Monday that it has bought the seafront hotel from Wittington Investments.

The Argus decided to look back at photos of the landmark hotel which opened 158 years ago. 

Designed in Italian style by John Whichcord Jr, The Grand Hotel was built between 1862 and 1864 at a cost of about £100,000 on the site of the houses of Artillery Place.

When it first opened in July 1864, it was by far the largest hotel in Brighton with over 150 bedrooms.

With eight storeys, it was also one of the tallest buildings in the city.

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The hotel belonged to the De Vere Group and in the 1990s it undertook a multimillion-pound refurbishment.

Some of the work undertaken during the refurbishment can be seen above, before it was eventually completed in 2013. The hotel's new spa opened during the same year.

Many know the hotel for when it was bombed by IRA in the early hours of October 12, 1984 in an attempt to assassinate Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher during the Conservative Party Conference.

The bomb had been hidden three weeks earlier behind the bath panel of room 629.

More recently, in 2019 it was refurbished.

Work on restoring the building's façade cost £3 million and the then owners spent £250,000 on architectural lighting.