Corinthia London | |
---|---|
Hotel chain | Corinthia Hotels |
General information | |
Location | London, England |
Address | Whitehall Place |
Opening | 1885, restored 2011 |
Management | Corinthia Hotels |
Other information | |
Number of rooms | 283 |
Number of suites | 58 |
Number of restaurants | 2 |
Website | |
www |
The Corinthia London Hotel, at the corner of Northumberland Avenue and Whitehall Place in central London, is a hotel and former British Government building, located on a triangular site between Trafalgar Square and the Thames Embankment.
Originally opened in 1885 as the Metropole Hotel, its location close to the Palace of Westminster and government offices in Whitehall meant it was commandeered in both world wars. After the Second World War, it was purchased by the Ministry of Defence and used as government offices until it was declared surplus to requirements and sold by Crown Estates in 2007. It was then restored as a hotel and renamed the Corinthia Hotel, a combination of hotel and residential building.
Commissioned by the Gordon Hotels company, construction was started in 1883. [1] The hotel opened in 1885, with an 88-page brochure which claimed: [2]
That the hotel’s location is particularly recommend it to ladies and families visiting the West End during the Season; to travellers from Paris and the Continent, arriving from Dover and Folkestone at the Charing Cross Terminus; to Officers and others attending the levees at St James; to Ladies going to the Drawing Rooms, State Balls, and Concerts at Buckingham Palace; and to colonial and American visitors unused to the great world of London
The hotel was the venue for the annual dinners of the Aero Club and the Alpine Club for several years, and acted as the gathering point for competitors in the first London to Brighton run in 1896. [3] The Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII entertained guests at the hotel on various occasions, [4] having a reserved box in the ballroom and using the Royal Suite, thought to have been the first floor rooms with bowfronted windows fronting Whitehall Place. [2]
The hotel was requisitioned in the run-up to World War I to provide accommodation for government staff, together with the other hotels and buildings in Northumberland Avenue, including the Constitutional Club and the offices of the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge. [2] The night before the British Expeditionary Force embarked for France on the outbreak of the war in August 1914, its two Commanders-in-Chief in the conflict, Field Marshals John French and Douglas Haig, both stayed in the building. [5]
Reopening as a hotel after World War I, the "Midnight Follies" became a well-known cabaret fixture.
In 1921 Bert Firman got a job as a violinist with the Midnight Follies Orchestra at the hotel. Shortly after beginning the job, the current band leader an alcoholic American saxophone player was indisposed, and Firman was offered the job. Only sixteen, he would thereafter claim to have been the youngest bandleader in the world. [4] After Firman left residence in 1924, other band leaders that played the hotel in the inter-war years included Mantovani.
On 4 January 1936 the England Rugby Union team, thanks to three try tries by Russian Prince Alexander Obolensky, beat the touring New Zealand All Blacks 13-0, the first time England had beaten New Zealand. Aided by Pathé News footage of the game, Obolensky's name entered into legend, since the first try, beating several All Blacks in a run of three-quarters of the length of the field, was widely regarded as the greatest try of the time, and one of the greatest tries ever scored by England. [6] The England team retired that night to the Metropole, where they found that the opposing New Zealand team also happened to be staying. [7]
When the government redeveloped buildings at Whitehall Gardens in mid-1936, they leased the entire hotel for £300,000pa, [2] to provide alternative office accommodation, initially for the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Transport, [8] later for the Air Ministry and the Ministry of Defence. [9]
About to hand back the building, the government extended the lease by again requisitioning the building in the build-up to World War II. Again a home for various departments, room 424 became the first home for MI9 and its sub-division the Special Operations Executive, [10] and later the holding point for one of the model planning beaches for Operation Overlord. [11]
Purchased from Gordon Hotels after World War II, it was transferred to the Crown Estate portfolio. Controlled by the Ministry of Defence, who used it as an overflow building to its main Whitehall complex, by 1951 the Air Ministry was again a major occupant. From the mid-60s until 1992 it housed the bulk of the Defence Intelligence Staff, the remainder of the analysts and the DIS central staff being sited in the MoD Main Building. In the James Bond comic strip in the Daily Express the artist Yaroslav Horak quite often depicted the Metropole Building as MI6 HQ. Subsequently, the MoD used the building during various refurbishments, when the mirrored ballroom provided the setting for Press Conferences and other major events. [2]
Having stood unoccupied since 2004, in 2007 the Metropole Building and the adjoining 10 Whitehall Place were acquired for a sum of £130 million by a consortium owned equally by Malta's IHI plc and two of its principal shareholders, the Libyan Foreign Investment Company and Nakheel Hotels of Dubai. [9] [12] In September 2008 City of Westminster council approved development of the two buildings as a hotel and residential complex. [13]
The building reopened in 2011 managed by Corinthia Hotels International. 10 Whitehall Place has been converted to 12 residences, and a spa run by Espa. [14]
In a nod to its past, the official announcement of the James Bond movie Skyfall was made at a press conference held at the Corinthia Hotel in November 2011. [15]
A lengthy sequence in the 2018 thriller Red Sparrow was filmed both inside and outside the hotel. [16] The film's press junket and photocall were also later held at the hotel, with star Jennifer Lawrence dressed in a Versace gown that attracted media attention. [17]
Begun in 2011, Artist in Residence is a performance usually lasting one hour that takes place on several dates. Since it began the hotel has invited individual writers, theatre companies and filmmakers to respond by application. The performer is normally an artist winning a national competition. The opera Found and Lost , by artist-in-residence Emily Hall, was performed in the hotel in January and February 2016.[ citation needed ]
Whitehall is a road and area in the City of Westminster, Central London, England. The road forms the first part of the A3212 road from Trafalgar Square to Chelsea. It is the main thoroughfare running south from Trafalgar Square towards Parliament Square. The street is recognised as the centre of the Government of the United Kingdom and is lined with numerous departments and ministries, including the Ministry of Defence, Horse Guards and the Cabinet Office. Consequently, the name "Whitehall" is used as a metonym for the British civil service and government, and as the geographic name for the surrounding area.
The Ministry of Defence is a ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom. It is responsible for implementing the defence policy set by the government and serves as the headquarters of the British Armed Forces.
The War Office has referred to several British government organisations throughout history, all relating to the army. It was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, at which point its functions were transferred to the new Ministry of Defence (MoD). Equivalent to the Admiralty at that time, the War Office was responsible for the Royal Navy (RN) and the Air Ministry, which oversaw the Royal Air Force (RAF). The name 'War Office' is also given to the former home of the department, located at the junction of Horse Guards Avenue and Whitehall in central London. The landmark building was sold on 1 March, 2016 by HM Government for more than £350 million, on a 250 year lease for conversion into a luxury hotel and residential apartments.
The Palace of Whitehall – also spelled White Hall – at Westminster was the main residence of the English monarchs from 1530 until 1698, when most of its structures, with the notable exception of Inigo Jones's Banqueting House of 1622, were destroyed by fire. Henry VIII moved the royal residence to White Hall after the old royal apartments at the nearby Palace of Westminster were themselves destroyed by fire. Although the Whitehall palace has not survived, the area where it was located is still called Whitehall and has remained a centre of the British government.
A number of military citadels are known to have been constructed underground in central London, dating mostly from the Second World War and the Cold War. Unlike traditional above-ground citadels, these sites are primarily secure centres for defence coordination.
Prince Alexander Sergeevich Obolensky was a Rurikid prince of Russian aristocratic descent who became a naturalised Briton, having spent most of his life in England, and who went on to represent England in international rugby union. He was, and remains, popularly known as "The Flying Prince", "The Flying Slav", or simply as "Obo" to many sports fans.
The SIS Building, also called the MI6 Building, at Vauxhall Cross houses the headquarters of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), also known as Military Intelligence, Section 6 (MI6), the United Kingdom's foreign intelligence agency. It is located at 85 Albert Embankment in Vauxhall, London, on the bank of the River Thames beside Vauxhall Bridge. The building has been the headquarters of the SIS since 1994.
Montagu House in Whitehall, Westminster, London, England, was the town house built by John Montagu, 2nd Duke of Montagu (1690–1749), whose country seat was Boughton House in Northamptonshire.
Northumberland Avenue is a street in the City of Westminster, Central London, running from Trafalgar Square in the west to the Thames Embankment in the east. The road was built on the site of Northumberland House, the London home of the Percy family, the Dukes of Northumberland between 1874 and 1876, and on part of the parallel Northumberland Street.
Trafalgar Theatre is a West End theatre in Whitehall, near Trafalgar Square, in the City of Westminster, London. The Grade II listed building was built in 1930 with interiors in the Art Deco style as the Whitehall Theatre; it regularly staged comedies and revues. It was converted into a television and radio studio in the 1990s, before returning to theatrical use in 2004 as Trafalgar Studios, the name it bore until 2020, with the auditorium converted to two studio spaces. It re-opened in 2021 following a major multi-million pound project to reinstate it to its original single-auditorium design.
The Hotel Métropole is a currently closed five-star luxury hotel in central Brussels, Belgium. It was built in 1872–1874 in an eclectic style with neo-Renaissance and Louis XVI influences. The hotel opened in 1895 and was the only 19th-century hotel still in operation in Brussels, until it closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020, after 125 years of continuous operation. The hotel had 251 rooms and 22 spacious suites. It was sold in 2022 and the new owners announced plans to restore it and reopen it in 2025.
Pembroke House, located on Whitehall, was the London residence of the earls of Pembroke.
Great Scotland Yard is a street in Westminster, London, connecting Northumberland Avenue and Whitehall. By the 16th century, this "yard", which was then a series of open courtyards within the Palace of Whitehall, was fronted by buildings used by diplomatic representatives of the Kingdom of Scotland. Over time the land was divided into Great Scotland Yard, Middle Scotland Yard and Little Scotland Yard. In the 19th century, it was a street and open space, which was the location of a public entrance to the original headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service of London, causing the name "Scotland Yard" to become synonymous with the police service.
Horse Guards Avenue is a road in the City of Westminster, London, linking the major thoroughfares of Whitehall and Victoria Embankment, to the east of the Horse Guards building and parade area. The entrance of the Main Building of the Ministry of Defence (MoD), flanked by its monumental Earth and Water statues, opens onto the Avenue. A statue of a Gurkha soldier, unveiled in 1997, stands as a memorial in front of the Ministry of Defence.
The Corinthia Grand Hotel Astoria Brussels is a historic five-star luxury hotel in the Freedom Quarter of Brussels, Belgium. Built in 1909 as the Hotel Astoria for the Brussels International Exposition of 1910, in a true Parisian spirit, the hotel's Louis XVI façade and majestic interior lend it a distinctly aristocratic appearance. It is considered among the finest luxury hotels in the world, and has served as a famous meeting place for kings and other great statesmen and world personalities. The hotel closed in 2007 and reopened in December 2024.
Skyfall is a 2012 spy film and the twenty-third in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions. The film is the third to star Daniel Craig as fictional MI6 agent James Bond and features Javier Bardem as Raoul Silva, the villain, with Judi Dench returning as M.
The Board of Invention and Research (BIR) was a British expert-level committee, initiated by the Admiralty of the Royal Navy. Established in 1915, the board was responsible for soliciting expert scientific assistance to solve tactical and technical problems. It was a sister organisation to the Munitions Inventions Department which had been set up in April 1915 and the Air Inventions Committee (AIC), once it became become fully operational in the summer of 1917.
Francis Edmund Hayman Fowler was a British architect who designed the Metropole Hotel with James Ebenezer Saunders. He was a member of the Metropolitan Board of Works but was forced to resign after being found guilty of corruption.
The Ministry of Defence Main Building or MOD Main Building, also known as MOD Whitehall or originally as the Whitehall Gardens Building, is a grade I listed government office building located on Whitehall in London. The building was designed by E. Vincent Harris in 1915 and constructed between 1939 and 1959 on part of the site of the Palace of Whitehall, specifically Pelham House, Cromwell House, Montagu House, Pembroke House and part of Whitehall Gardens. It was initially occupied by the Air Ministry and the Board of Trade before becoming the current home of the Ministry of Defence in 1964.
The Admiralty buildings complex lies between Whitehall, Horse Guards Parade and The Mall and includes five inter-connected buildings.