Imperial Hotel, London

Imperial Hotel
Imperial Hotel, Russell Square, 2017
Imperial Hotel, Russell Square, 2017
Imperial Hotel, London is located in Central London
Imperial Hotel, London
Location within Central London
Hotel chainImperial London Hotels
General information
Location61-66 Russell Square, London, WC1B 5BB, United Kingdom
Coordinates51°31′18″N 0°07′27″W / 51.5218°N 0.1241°W / 51.5218; -0.1241
Renovated2024-2026
Technical details
Floor count10
Other information
Number of rooms357
Website
www.imperialhotels.co.uk/hotels/IMPERIAL

The Imperial Hotel is a four-star hotel on the east side of Russell Square, London. It is a branch of Imperial London Hotels.[1]

Former building (1907–1967)

Imperial Hotel, the original building, about 1915
The Lounge, about 1920

The original building was designed by Charles Fitzroy Doll and built between 1905 and 1907. The height of the building was 61 meters and there were 15 floors.[2] In 1911, it was used by the first all-Indian cricket team to tour England.[3]

Physicist Leo Szilard was staying at the Imperial Hotel when he conceived of the atomic bomb.[4]

Round about 1910 an extension to the hotel took place and construction was completed in 1913.[5] As part of the extension, Victorian-style Turkish baths were constructed.[6][7] The hotel had about 640 bedrooms.[8] The building was as colossal as its neighbour, Doll's Hotel Russell, now the Kimpton Fitzroy London Hotel. The architectural style was a mixture of Art Nouveau Tudor and Art Nouveau Gothic, combining terra-cotta ornaments in which the corbels, gargoyles and statues were modelled with red brick. Towers rose above a high mansard roof of green copper. A Winter Garden occupied the ground floor between the two bedroom wings. Both Winter garden and Turkish baths were decorated in glazed Doulton ware.[9]

The building was demolished at the beginning of 1967.[2][10] It was demolished because of its lack of bathrooms and because, according to the Greater London Council, the whole frame of the building was structurally unsound. There was no possibility of saving it if a preservation order had been placed on the building. In truth, however, the building was probably a victim of fashion and the prevailing taste in the 1960s.[11] All that remains of the building are 21 statues from the Turkish baths, bells and a galleon, now placed in the courtyard of the current hotel.[12]

Current building

The current hotel seen in 2023 prior to its renovation.

The hotel was replaced by a new building of the same name but in a Modernist-Brutalist style, which opened in 1970.[13] The architects were Charles Lovett Gill & Partners.[14] The Imperial Hotel and its pair the President Hotel contiguous to the north are described in Pevsner's London as "two tawdry affairs with sawtooth fronts, entirely unworthy of their position".[15] The change of style followed the arrival of a new generation of the owning Walduck family (Richard, Thomas and Stephen Walduck) in the mid 1960s, succeeding their fathers Harold, Norman and Stanley Walduck. The Brutalist zig-zag patterns had already been used on their Bedford Hotel, on the west side of Southampton Row.

The Imperial Hotel closed for renovation in June 2024 and reopened in August 2026. It has 357 rooms and a rooftop terrace on the 10th floor with a bar, a restaurant, and a free viewing area open to the public.[16]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Imperial London Hotels". imperialhotels.co.uk. Retrieved 10 September 2016.
  2. 1 2 "Imperial Hotel, London | 1201988 | EMPORIS". Emporis. Archived from the original on 25 July 2020.
  3. ↑ Alderman, Elgan. "Hundreds and heatwaves: the story of the 1911 All India tour to England that helped shape the country's identity". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Archived from the original on 29 November 2021. Retrieved 4 December 2021.
  4. ↑ Lordan, Robert (4 January 2020). "Bloomsbury: Where The Bomb Was Born".
  5. ↑ "Getting Dolled Up On The East Side". 25 October 2021.
  6. ↑ "Turkish baths at Imperial Hotel". London Remembers.
  7. ↑ Shifrin, Malcolm (2015). Victorian Turkish baths. Swindon: Historic England. pp.218—224
  8. ↑ Vintage postcard from 1930s says:"640 bedrooms with hot & cold water, telephones, radio, central heating. Fully licensed""
  9. ↑ Stamp, Gavin (2010). Lost Victorian Britain. London: Aurum Press Ltd. p. [page/59 61]. ISBN 9781845135324.
  10. ↑ Baker, Roger (1968). The Book of London. London: Michael Joseph Ltd. p. [page 128].
  11. ↑ Hobhouse, Hermione (1971). Lost London. London & Basingstoke: MacMillan London. p. [page 207].
  12. ↑ "Imperial Hotel - statue 15". London Remembers.
  13. ↑ Hobhouse, Hermione (1972). Lost London ([1st American ed.] ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. p. 207. ISBN 9780395135211.
  14. ↑ "Imperial London family of hotels. About us & more". Imperial London family of hotels. 2026. Retrieved 29 August 2026.
  15. ↑ Cherry, Bridget (1998). London 4: North. London: Penguin Books. p. 326. ISBN 0140710493.
  16. ↑ "London's Imperial Hotel undergoing renovation". www.travelweekly.com.
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