Langham Hotel, London
Encyclopedia
The Langham, London is one of the largest and best known traditional style grand hotels in London
. It is in the district of Marylebone
on Langham Place
and faces up Portland Place
towards Regent's Park
. It is a member of the Leading Hotels of the World marketing consortium.
The Langham, London was built between 1863 and 1865 at a cost of £300,000. It was then the largest and most modern hotel in the city, featuring a hundred water closets, thirty six bathrooms and the first hydraulic lifts in England
. The opening ceremony was performed by the Prince of Wales
. After the original company was liquidated during an economic slump, new management acquired the hotel for little more than half what it had cost to build, and it soon became a commercial success. In 1870 a former Union officer named James Sanderson was appointed general manager and the hotel developed an extensive American clientele, which included Mark Twain
and the miserly multi-millionairess, Hetty Green
. It was also patronised by the likes of Napoleon III, Oscar Wilde
, Antonín Dvořák
, and Arturo Toscanini
. Electric light was installed in the entrance and courtyard at the exceptionally early date of 1879, and Arthur Conan Doyle
set Sherlock Holmes
stories such as A Scandal in Bohemia
and The Sign of Four partly at the Langham.
The Langham continued to be a favoured spot with many high profile political figures and members of the royal family throughout the twentieth century, including Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle and Princess Diana. Other celebrity guests included Noel Coward
, Wallis Simpson, Don Bradman, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia
and Ayumi Hamasaki
.
The Langham, London was hard hit by the Great Depression
and the owners attempted to sell the site to the BBC
, but Broadcasting House was built on the other side of the road instead. During World War II
, the hotel was used in part by the Army
and then damaged by bombs and forced to close. After the war, it was occupied by the BBC as ancillary accommodation to Broadcasting House, and the corporation purchased it outright in 1965.
One notorious BBC employee who stayed at the Langham is Guy Burgess, who would later become known as one of the 'Cambridge Five', a spying ring who fed official secrets to the Soviets during the Cold War. A BBC internal memo reveals that upon being unable to access his room in the hotel late one night, Burgess attempted to break down the door with a fire extinguisher.
The ballroom became the BBC record library and programs such as The Goon Show
were recorded there. In 1980 the BBC unsuccessfully applied for planning permission
to demolish the building and replace it with an office development designed by Norman Foster
. In 1986 it was sold to Ladbroke Group for £26 million, which purchased the non-US Hilton
business in 1987 and eventually reopened the hotel as the Langham Hilton in 1991 after a £100 million refurbishment. New owners extended the hotel and carried out other refurbishments between 1998 and 2000. Further renovation took place between 2004-09, at an estimated cost of £80 million.
, its entryway doubling in an exterior shot for St Petersburg's Grand Hotel Europe. Only the exterior was filmed at the hotel, the interior was filmed in a studio. The Langham is also featured in Michael Winterbottom
's 1999 film Wonderland.
The Langham Hotel was also used as the main hotels external shots for Mary-Kate & Ashley Olsens 2001 "Winning London" made for TV movie.
(based in Hong Kong
), and is the flagship hotel of the group. The hotel has a five star
classification. A further round of refurbishment, costing £80m was completed in April 2009. The reconfigured Langham now has 380 rooms, down from 425, a restored Palm Court which has been serving afternoon tea since 1865, a new business centre and 15 function rooms including The Grand Ballroom which holds up to 375 guests for a reception. The new spaces join the Artesian bar, The Landau restaurant and the private dining room, Postillion, created by designer David Collins.
On March 19, 2010 a City of Westminster Green Plaque was unveiled by the writer and former M.P.
Gyles Brandreth
. The plaque commemorated the meeting at the Langham in August 1889 between Oscar Wilde
, Arthur Conan Doyle
and Joseph Marshall Stoddart. Stoddart commissioned the two other men to write stories for his magazine Lippincott's Monthly Magazine
. Arthur Conan Doyle
wrote The Sign of Four
which was published in the magazine in February 1890. Oscar Wilde
wrote The Picture of Dorian Gray
which was published in July that same year.
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. It is in the district of Marylebone
Marylebone
Marylebone is an affluent inner-city area of central London, located within the City of Westminster. It is sometimes written as St. Marylebone or Mary-le-bone....
on Langham Place
Langham Place, London
Langham Place is a street in Westminster, central London, England. It connects Portland Place to the north with Regent Street to the south in London's West End.- Buildings :...
and faces up Portland Place
Portland Place
Portland Place is a street in the Marylebone district of central London, England.-History and topography:The street was laid out by the brothers Robert and James Adam for the Duke of Portland in the late 18th century and originally ran north from the gardens of a detached mansion called Foley House...
towards Regent's Park
Regent's Park
Regent's Park is one of the Royal Parks of London. It is in the north-western part of central London, partly in the City of Westminster and partly in the London Borough of Camden...
. It is a member of the Leading Hotels of the World marketing consortium.
History
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. The opening ceremony was performed by the Prince of Wales
Edward VII of the United Kingdom
Edward VII was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910...
. After the original company was liquidated during an economic slump, new management acquired the hotel for little more than half what it had cost to build, and it soon became a commercial success. In 1870 a former Union officer named James Sanderson was appointed general manager and the hotel developed an extensive American clientele, which included Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
and the miserly multi-millionairess, Hetty Green
Hetty Green
Hetty Green , nicknamed "The Witch of Wall Street" , was an American businesswoman, remarkable for her frugality during the Gilded Age, as well as for being the first American woman to make a substantial impact on Wall Street.-Birth and early years:She was born Henrietta Howland Robinson in New...
. It was also patronised by the likes of Napoleon III, Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
, Antonín Dvořák
Antonín Dvorák
Antonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...
, and Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. One of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th century, he was renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory...
. Electric light was installed in the entrance and courtyard at the exceptionally early date of 1879, and Arthur Conan Doyle
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...
set Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve...
stories such as A Scandal in Bohemia
A Scandal in Bohemia
"A Scandal in Bohemia" was the first of Arthur Conan Doyle's 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories to be published in The Strand Magazine and the first Sherlock Holmes story illustrated by Sidney Paget....
and The Sign of Four partly at the Langham.
The Langham continued to be a favoured spot with many high profile political figures and members of the royal family throughout the twentieth century, including Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle and Princess Diana. Other celebrity guests included Noel Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
, Wallis Simpson, Don Bradman, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
and Ayumi Hamasaki
Ayumi Hamasaki
is a Japanese singer-songwriter, record producer, model, lyricist, and actress. Also called "Ayu" by her fans, Hamasaki has been dubbed the "Empress of Pop" because of her popularity and widespread influence in Japan and throughout Asia. Born and raised in Fukuoka, she moved to Tokyo at fourteen to...
.
The Langham, London was hard hit by the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
and the owners attempted to sell the site to the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, but Broadcasting House was built on the other side of the road instead. During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the hotel was used in part by the Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
and then damaged by bombs and forced to close. After the war, it was occupied by the BBC as ancillary accommodation to Broadcasting House, and the corporation purchased it outright in 1965.
One notorious BBC employee who stayed at the Langham is Guy Burgess, who would later become known as one of the 'Cambridge Five', a spying ring who fed official secrets to the Soviets during the Cold War. A BBC internal memo reveals that upon being unable to access his room in the hotel late one night, Burgess attempted to break down the door with a fire extinguisher.
The ballroom became the BBC record library and programs such as The Goon Show
The Goon Show
The Goon Show was a British radio comedy programme, originally produced and broadcast by the BBC Home Service from 1951 to 1960, with occasional repeats on the BBC Light Programme...
were recorded there. In 1980 the BBC unsuccessfully applied for planning permission
Planning permission
Planning permission or planning consent is the permission required in the United Kingdom in order to be allowed to build on land, or change the use of land or buildings. Within the UK the occupier of any land or building will need title to that land or building , but will also need "planning...
to demolish the building and replace it with an office development designed by Norman Foster
Norman Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank
Norman Robert Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank, OM is a British architect whose company maintains an international design practice, Foster + Partners....
. In 1986 it was sold to Ladbroke Group for £26 million, which purchased the non-US Hilton
Hilton Hotels Corporation
Hilton Worldwide is a global hospitality company. It is owned by the Blackstone Group, a private equity firm. As of July 2011 Hilton brands encompass 3,750 hotels with over 600,000 rooms in 84 countries...
business in 1987 and eventually reopened the hotel as the Langham Hilton in 1991 after a £100 million refurbishment. New owners extended the hotel and carried out other refurbishments between 1998 and 2000. Further renovation took place between 2004-09, at an estimated cost of £80 million.
The Langham on film
The hotel featured in the James Bond film GoldenEyeGoldenEye
GoldenEye is the seventeenth spy film in the James Bond series, and the first to star Pierce Brosnan as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. The film was directed by Martin Campbell and is the first film in the series not to take story elements from the works of novelist Ian Fleming...
, its entryway doubling in an exterior shot for St Petersburg's Grand Hotel Europe. Only the exterior was filmed at the hotel, the interior was filmed in a studio. The Langham is also featured in Michael Winterbottom
Michael Winterbottom
Michael Winterbottom is a prolific English filmmaker who has directed seventeen feature films in the past fifteen years. He began his career working in British television before moving into features...
's 1999 film Wonderland.
The Langham Hotel was also used as the main hotels external shots for Mary-Kate & Ashley Olsens 2001 "Winning London" made for TV movie.
The Hotel today
The hotel is now part of Langham Hotels InternationalLangham Hotels International
Langham Hotels International is a luxury hotels operator dating back to 1865, when The Langham, London originally opened as Europe's first 'Grand Hotel'....
(based in Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
), and is the flagship hotel of the group. The hotel has a five star
Star (classification)
Stars are often used as symbols for classification purposes. They are used by reviewers for ranking things such as movies, TV shows, restaurants, and hotels. For example, one to five stars is commonly employed to categorize hotels.-Restaurant ratings:...
classification. A further round of refurbishment, costing £80m was completed in April 2009. The reconfigured Langham now has 380 rooms, down from 425, a restored Palm Court which has been serving afternoon tea since 1865, a new business centre and 15 function rooms including The Grand Ballroom which holds up to 375 guests for a reception. The new spaces join the Artesian bar, The Landau restaurant and the private dining room, Postillion, created by designer David Collins.
On March 19, 2010 a City of Westminster Green Plaque was unveiled by the writer and former M.P.
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
Gyles Brandreth
Gyles Brandreth
Gyles Daubeney Brandreth is a British writer, broadcaster and former Conservative Member of Parliament and junior minister.-Early life:...
. The plaque commemorated the meeting at the Langham in August 1889 between Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
, Arthur Conan Doyle
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...
and Joseph Marshall Stoddart. Stoddart commissioned the two other men to write stories for his magazine Lippincott's Monthly Magazine
Lippincott's Monthly Magazine
Lippincott's Monthly Magazine was a 19th century literary magazine published in Philadelphia from 1868 to 1915, when it relocated to New York to become McBride's Magazine. It merged with Scribner's Magazine in 1916....
. Arthur Conan Doyle
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...
wrote The Sign of Four
The Sign of Four
The Sign of the Four , also called The Sign of Four, is the second novel featuring Sherlock Holmes written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Doyle wrote four novels and 56 stories starring the fictional detective.The story is set in 1887...
which was published in the magazine in February 1890. Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
wrote The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Picture of Dorian Gray is the only published novel by Oscar Wilde, appearing as the lead story in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine on 20 June 1890, printed as the July 1890 issue of this magazine...
which was published in July that same year.
External links
- The Langham, London official website
- The Langham, London historic photographs and the present
- Palm Court, where afternoon tea is served
- The Landau, fine dining restaurant
- Review of the Roux at the Landau restaurant at the Langham
- Artesian, cocktail bar
- A detailed history of The Langham in cosmopolis.ch