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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful —
What I liked was...1) veeeery nice location: city center (10 min to walk to The Big Ben), very quite, expensive district.. huge field on the front side...
2) although the room was poorly furnished, it compensated totally with the greatest mattresses I have ever tried... sooo relaxing, so goood for spine...
And nice English breakfast...
All in all, I still have good memories)
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This is not a hotel, more like a hostel. It appears to be a former dorm for Kings College. Our room had 2 twin beds, a desk, a wardrobe, a TV, and a sink. The toilets and showers were on the other side of the building. It was a long and spooky walk in the middle of the night... The showers were disgusting and the "continental breakfast" was appalling. Our room was on the second floor and there was no elevator to get our luggage up. The staff was not too friendly or helpful. They make you leave the key when you go out, but they then freely dispense the keys without asking the requestor for identification or anything. Definitely not a good value for your money, but then again this is expensive London... so you get what you pay for?? However, they should not claim to be a hotel!!!
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From the outside the hotel looks pretty good, as well as the reception area. However, once you go through the double doors that lead into the hallway everything changes. There's a musty, old scent in the hallway that I can't actually place or describe for that matter, but it is not pleasant. The hallway and the rest of the hotel seemed creepy and gave me somewhat of an uneasy feeling. I’m not a superstitious person, so I wasn’t really expecting ghosts and goblins to physically walk about the hotel during the night. Nevertheless, the place felt deserted, and I really did feel as if I was in a horror movie...the hotel reminded me of "The Shinning". In regards to the room, it was clean, it had a working sink with a mirror, three single beds and a closet. The beds and linens could be of better quality. The beds rolled (moved about) too easily, but as far as comfort is concern, they were okay. The linens could be of better quality - you can tell they are old. Every time I switched on the light in the room it flickered for a few seconds, eventually casting a low yellow light, which just heightened the eerie ambience of the place. The WC (toilets) were in excellent condition, however, the showers were not. There was a broken window where the showers are located, and one of the showers had a collection of rusty tools, old crumbled papers and debris. Needless to say, I did not use the showers.
I stayed in this hotel because my flight had and overnight stay in London. I figured a decent, inexpensive hotel in Central London would be an ideal place to spend the night. The convenience of the location allowed me to enjoy a few of the sites during my evening stay (the hotel is basically located in Westminster, which means that you can literally walk to Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, ect.). The hotel did arrange for a taxi pick up and wake up call in the morning, which was very helpful.
All in all, if the hotel invests in a few (highly needed) renovations it will be much better, and they could definitely capitalize on the charm of the traditional British ghosts stories. Unfortunately, as it stands, it’s not really a charming place to stay. If you are looking for inspiration to write a horror story and/or for an inexpensive place to sleep in Central London, then this hotel is great, so long as you don’t mind some of the things I have mentioned above. If I were to stay in London for more than one night, I would not be staying in this hotel (unless they renovate). For the same amount of money, you can either stay at a hostel or a hotel right outside Central London that provides transportation to the city.
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