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Corinthia Hotel London
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Corinthia Hotel London
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. The hotel opened in 1885, with an 88-page brochure which claimed:
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. The Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII entertained guests at the hotel on various occasions, 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.
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. 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.
Reopening as a hotel after World War I, the "Midnight Follies" became a well-known cabaret fixture.[1][2]
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. After Firman left residence in 1924, other band leaders that played the hotel in the inter-war years included Mantovani.
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Corinthia Hotel London
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. The hotel opened in 1885, with an 88-page brochure which claimed:
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. The Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII entertained guests at the hotel on various occasions, 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.
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. 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.
Reopening as a hotel after World War I, the "Midnight Follies" became a well-known cabaret fixture.[1][2]
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. After Firman left residence in 1924, other band leaders that played the hotel in the inter-war years included Mantovani.
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