Biggest, tallest, oldest, ugliest — here are some of our favourite London hotel facts.
1. London's biggest hotels
The three-star 1,630 bedroom Royal National Hotel in Bloomsbury is the largest hotel in London (and indeed, in the whole of the UK) by number of rooms.
The Hilton London Metropole Hotel in Paddington is the largest four-star hotel in London and the UK. It has 1,058 bedrooms.
London's five-star hotels are quite small by international standards: the largest in London is the Grosvenor House Hotel, which has just 494 rooms.
2. And the smallest?
We've covered this before. We think it might be 40 Winks on Mile End Road.
3. London's tallest hotel
The London Hilton on Park Lane is London's tallest hotel. It's 101 metres (331 ft) tall, has 28 storeys and 453 rooms.
Michelin-starred restaurant Galvin at Windows is on the top floor of the hotel — the views as tasty as the food.
4. London's highest hotel (this is indeed different)
The views at the Park Lane Hilton are beaten by London's highest hotel, the Shangri-La Hotel at The Shard.
The Shangri-La Hotel occupies the 34th to the 52nd floors of Renzo Piano's skyscraper.
5. London's Grade I listed hotels
London has two Grade I listed hotels: the French chateau-modelled, five-star Royal Horseguards Hotel in Whitehall; and the St Pancras Renaissance London. Royal Horseguards Hotel was once home/office for MI6 chief Sir Mansfield Cumming (the inspiration for 'M' from James Bond).
6. London's floating hotel
What do you mean you didn't know there was a hotel floating on the Thames? Sunborn London is a hotel on board a super yacht, with 136 rooms, a restaurant and a bar, and well, rather limited parking options...
7. London's ugliest hotel
Beauty is, of course, in the eye of the beholder. But we think the Guoman Tower Hotel near Tower Bridge is the ugliest hotel in London.
It's twice been voted the second ugliest building in London, in 2005 and 2006. (It was beaten by the Elephant and Castle shopping centre and Colliers Wood tower respectively.)
They couldn't have picked a more prominent location to dump it.
8. The one with the ghosts
Ghost hunters should head to the Langham, London's 'most haunted hotel'.
Believers should look out for a gentleman in Victorian evening wear who haunts room 333 during October; or the ghost of a German prince who jumped out of a window before the first world war; or the spirit of Emperor Napoleon III, who hangs out in the basement.
As recently as 2014, big burly England cricketers — surely not the most superstitious of blokes — were completely spooked by odd goings on at the hotel.
9. And the one with the vampire hunter
The Andaz London Liverpool Street, then called the Great Eastern Hotel, is where vampire hunter Abraham Van Helsing stays during his first visit to London in Bram Stoker's Gothic horror story Dracula.
10. London's hotels converted from courthouses
London boasts not one, but two hotels that used to be courthouses — Clink78 and the Courthouse Hotel.
In its days as the Marlborough Street Magistrates Court, there were many (in)famous trials on the site involving figures such as John Lennon, Oscar Wilde, Johnny Rotten, Christine Keeler, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. The five-star Courthouse Hotel has retained some of its original features: The Bar's private booths are actually inside three of the original prison cells. You've not lived until you've had a martini perched on a prisoner's loo seat.
At the Clink78 youth hostel, where punk rockers The Clash once stood trial, guests can stay in former prison cells.
11. Inspirational London hotels
London's hotels have inspired a whole host of literary types.
It's said that Rudyard Kipling wrote his Jungle Book stories at Brown's. And that Agatha Christie was inspired to write At Bertrams Hotel at the same address. (Or maybe it was at Flemings Mayfair?)
Then there's the Langham, where the editor of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine simultaneously commissioned both Arthur Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde to write stories for the publication. The results were The Sign of Four (published in February 1890) and The Picture of Dorian Gray (published in July of the same year).
12. The one with the hidden temples
The Andaz Liverpool Street has not one, but two masonic temples hidden within its red brick exterior.
There's an Egyptian temple in the basement and a Grecian temple on the first floor. The former has traditional seating around a black-and-white chequered marble floor, said to be worth about £3m.
The latter was fitted out in 1912, and features an organ, beefy doors enhanced by doric and ionic columns, and another black-and-white marble sunken floor, surrounded by masonic insignia and throne-like seating.
13. The one with the classic music video
So, it's not strictly inside a London hotel, but we're claiming it anyway: the video to Bob Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues — the one with the much-copied cue cards and poet Allen Ginsberg hanging out in the background — was filmed in the alleyway behind The Savoy.
Want to go and find the exact spot for yourself? Popspotnyc.com have a detailed article to help with that.
Below is the original Subterranean Homesick Blues video with modern commentary by the director D A Pennebaker and Bob Neuwirth.
