The Langham Hotel is a stalwart of London’s hotel scene.  It has been welcoming visitors (many of them celebs and royalty) for 140 years. When F&T visited, from our suite high up in the building we could glimpse Big Ben and the London Eye across a sea of grey slate and even greyer tiled roofs and chimney-pots.

Inside, our room glowed with dashes of the Langham’s iconic pale pink and richer colours. The epitome of understated luxury and style.

The hotel was opened by the then Prince of Wales as one of Europe’s first grand hotels in 1865, at a time when corridors needed to be wide enough for two ladies in crinolines to pass! Other ultimate luxuries for the time included the first hydraulic lifts, air conditioning, its own steam-pumped well, and WCs in every bedroom. Electric lights followed in 1879, then telephones in 1890.

Since then the Langham has welcomed everyone from playwrights and writers like Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, to cricketing great Sir Donald Bradman, and royalty and world leaders including General Charles de Gaulle, Sir Winston Churchill and HRH Diana, Princess of Wales.

Today’s Langham Hotel London with its 380 luxurious guestrooms and suites, 15 function rooms, Chuan Spa, fine dining restaurant, Roux at The Landau and Palm Court, is well located on Regent Street, one of the city's premier locations. 

It has, however, won its place on the record books for another reason. It is believed to be here where the tradition of afternoon tea was born.

Now, after an £80 million spruce-up a couple of years ago the hotel is in excellent shape yet again. It’s obvious that this grand old lady of the London hotel scene has certainly dusted off her elegant crinoline (pink, of course) and is set to party on, well into the 21st century.

 - Sally Hammond