Hotel of the Week: The Landmark Hotel

Bev Fearis checked in to London’s Landmark Hotel to see if it lived up to its name.

The Landmark Hotel stands in the midst of the six-lane Marylebone Road, one of London’s main thoroughfares where more than 80,000 vehicles pass per day, but once those big old glass doors closed behind me, I found myself in an oasis of calm and serenity. With its magnificent eight-storey glass roof atrium, complete with 40-foot palm trees, this five-star hotel is a haven from the craziness of central London.

It opened in 1899 as The Great Central Hotel and was the last of the great Victorian railway hotels built during ‘the golden age of steam’. Back in those days, the atrium was a central courtyard where horse-drawn carriages would deposit men in top hats and tails and ladies in flouncy dresses and feathered hats. In the ‘roaring twenties’ it was transformed into a dance floor, then during the war the hotel became a home for convalescing officers and soldiers on leave. After the war it was turned into offices, then became a hotel again in 1986, changing owners several times until 1995 when it was taken over by the Lancaster Landmark Hotel Company. Today the atrium is home to the Winter Garden restaurant, where international business types and well-heeled families from all over the world talk in hushed voices over their pan roasted salmon and risotto.

The hotel has 51 luxurious suites and 249 bedrooms and claims they are among the largest in London. My Corner Executive twin suite was spacious indeed – 70 square metres in fact, with a lounge area large enough to host a small cocktail party. I didn’t get a chance to try out the executive desk but I did take a minute to sit on the two-seater sofa to flick through the 70 TV channels on the 42-inch screen. There’s an armchair too but that ended up covered in my clothes.

The white Italian marble bathroom has a large bath (and very powerful taps so it didn’t take long to fill), a good size walk-in shower and double sinks.

The decor is the usual neutral shades of beige and cream with Victorian touches. Heavy curtains block out the light at night and the traffic noise was just a very low level hum which actually helped me sleep. The bed was one of the most comfortable I’ve slept in.

Reception staff were super attentive and the helpful concierge gave me a map and good directions to Oxford Street, around a 20-minute walk away. I turned left, past Baker Street tube and the queues at Madame Tussauds, then turned right to cut through Marleybone High Road, which is a world away from Marylebone Road with designer stores, cafes, considerably less traffic and, as a result, a much more laid back vibe.

My stay went completely without hitch until the morning, when I arrived at the Winter Garden for breakfast just before 9am and was told by a frazzled looking maitre d’ that that there would be a wait for a table. I looked around me and there were already four or five couples and families waiting patiently, some of them sitting on the bottom of the atrium stairs. With a train to catch, I didn’t have the time to wait so I had to check out without sampling what I guess would have been a fabulous hearty English breakfast with all the trimmings. Unfortunately I’ll never know.

I shared my disappointment with reception staff as I left and was told the hotel was unusually full for a Friday. Even so, I wondered why, with all that space, the hotel couldn’t make room for a few more tables at breakfast.

As I grabbed a cuppa and a croissant from the M&S cafe at Baker Street, I felt a little cheated that my otherwise faultless stay had ended on a sour note. Apparently, my comments have been passed to the general manager.

For more details about the Landmark Hotel, see www.landmarklondon.co.uk