1C Portland Pl, London W1B 1JA, United Kingdom
The Langham Hotel is one of the largest and most famous grand hotels in the traditional style in London. It is located in the Marylebone district on Langham Place and faces Portland Place towards Regent's Park. The Langham was designed by John Giles and built between 1863 and 1865. At that time, it was the largest and most modern hotel in the city, with a hundred toilets, thirty-six bathrooms, and the first hydraulic elevator in England. The opening ceremony on June 10, 1865, was conducted by the Prince of Wales. Soon the hotel became a favorite residence for members of the royal family, artists, and musicians from around the world, including Emperor Louis Napoleon III, who spent much of his forced exile from France at the Langham Hotel in London.
In his London guidebook, Charles Dickens wrote that the Langham charged 72 and a half pence for a bedroom, breakfast with coffee and a meat assortment, and dinner with soup and meat. Dickens claimed that this was the most expensive meal in a London hotel. But for large formal dinners, there was nowhere else to go.
In 1872, Twain had to urgently travel to England to deal with piracy issues. He liked London and stayed at the Langham Hotel, where he met with publisher Routledge. Literary London welcomed Twain warmly, hosting receptions, dinners, and inviting him to literary gatherings. Twain was invited to prestigious London clubs: the White Brothers Club, the Savages Club, and the Pilgrims Club. British impresario George Dolby organized performances in London. He considered bringing his family to England, but due to his daughter Susy's illness, he had to return to America. On May 17, 1873, he went to England again to sign a contract with Routledge for The Gilded Age. This time he took his wife and daughter, and his wife's friend Clara Spolding accompanied them. In London, his popularity grew; they stayed at the same Langham, with apartments full of guests every day. Spolding remembered Turgenev, Robert Browning, Charles Kingsley, politicians Charles Dilke and Lord Houghton, artist John Millais, and even the famous medium Home. Additionally, he met Wilkie Collins, Herbert Spencer, Anthony Trollope, and other writers here.
Soon, London's Langham celebrated its silver jubilee, immortalized in writing by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. A frequent guest of the hotel, Doyle used the hotel as a setting for several Sherlock Holmes stories.
A memorial plaque in Westminster Park commemorates the meeting of Oscar Wilde, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Joseph Marshall Stoddart at the Langham in August 1889. Stoddart commissioned the other two men to write stories for his magazine, Lippincott's Monthly Magazine. Arthur Conan Doyle wrote "The Sign of Four" here, which was published in the magazine in February 1890. Oscar Wilde wrote "The Picture of Dorian Gray" during his stay at the hotel, published in July 1890.
Throughout the 20th century, the Langham remained a favorite retreat for members of the royal family, such as Diana, Princess of Wales, and politicians including Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle. Other guests included Noël Coward, Wallis Simpson, Don Bradman, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, and Ayumi Hamasaki.
The Langham suffered greatly during the Great Depression, and the owners attempted to sell the BBC site, but instead, Broadcasting House was built on Portland Place. During World War II, the hotel was partially used by the British Army until it was bombed and forced to close. After the war, it was occupied by the BBC as auxiliary premises for Broadcasting House, and the corporation fully purchased it in 1965.
One of the BBC employees staying at the Langham was Guy Burgess, one of the "Cambridge Five," a spy ring that supplied official secrets to the Soviets during the Cold War. A BBC internal memo shows that one late night, unable to get into his hotel room, Burgess tried to break down the door using a fire extinguisher.
In 1980, the BBC unsuccessfully applied for permission to demolish the building and replace it with an office development designed by Norman Foster. In 1986, the BBC sold the property to the Ladbroke Group (which later acquired Hilton hotels outside the US) for £26 million and eventually reopened the hotel as the Langham Hilton in 1991 after a £100 million renovation.
In 2010, a memorial plaque was installed in Westminster Park to commemorate the meeting of Oscar Wilde, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Joseph Marshall Stoddart at the Langham in August 1889.
The hotel appeared in the James Bond film "GoldenEye" (1995); its lobby was used as a stand-in for the exterior shots of the Grand Hotel Europe in Saint Petersburg. Only the exterior of the hotel was filmed on location, while the interior scenes were shot in a studio.
In 2010, a memorial plaque was installed in Westminster Park to commemorate the meeting of Oscar Wilde, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Joseph Marshall Stoddart at the Langham in August 1889.
Source:
https://mark-twain.ru/po-sledam-marka-tvena/otel-lenghem-the-langham-v-londone
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langham_Hotel,_London
