![](/images/cat_icons/frieze_art.gif)
Hotel Russell - Russell Square, London, UK
N 51° 31.355 W 000° 07.523
30U E 699417 N 5711858
Hotel Russell stands at the north eastern side of Russell Square and is easily recognised by its grandeur and colour.
Waymark Code: WMDGYZ
Location: London, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 01/15/2012
Views: 3
The hotel is a Grade II* listed building and the entry at
English Heritage reads:
"Hotel. 1892-98. By Charles Fitzroy Doll, surveyor of the Bedford Estate. Red
brick with terracotta dressings. Roofs and turrets with green fishscale tiles.
Tall slab chimney-stacks with horizontal brick and terracotta bands. Originally
with central copper dome and lantern, now with tile mansard roof.
STYLE: flamboyant French Renaissance style derived from engravings of the
Chateau de Madrid, with elaborate decorations.
EXTERIOR: 8 storeys, attics and basements. Symmetrical facade of 7 gabled bays
with octagonal corner turrets. Return to Bernard Street, 12 windows; return to
Guilford Street, 8 windows and attached rectangular tower at the right-hand
angle. Facade articulated vertically by octagonal turrets with ogee roofs at
angles, penultimate gabled bays with canted bay windows rising from ground to
6th floor terminating in half ogee roofs with 2-light windows, and a 3-bay
central, projecting porch with round-arched entrance flanked by single window
bays rising to 4th floor level with recessed bay windows forming the central bay
above the entrance. Projecting modillion cornice at 5th floor level above which
flanking bays become 3 storey semicircular turrets surmounted by conical tile
roofs with gablets and linked across the now flat, recessed central bay by a
wide arch surmounted by a scrolled pediment with 2 round-arched, paired windows,
an entablature with the date 1894, above which a rectangular gabled dormer. All
with elaborate terracotta decoration. Round-arched ground floor windows in
shallow, arcading with attached Ionic columns. Other windows square-headed,
mostly mullion and transom casements. 1st floor with continuous projecting
arcaded terracotta balconies with round-arched balustrade and coats of arms in
the spandrels. At 1st floor level flanking the balcony over the entrance,
figures wearing historical costume in corbelled niches. 2nd floor continuous
balconies with terracotta round-arched balustrades. 3rd and 4th floor windows
with cast-iron continuous balconies. Projecting modillion cornice at 5th floor
level above an enriched frieze, following the contours of the bays. Shaped
gables with horizontal brick and terracotta bands and small windows. Returns in
similar style."
Source
English Heritage.
From the hotel's website:
"Built between 1896 and 1900 by the firm of Langdale, Hallet & Co and
smothered in terracotta ornament supplied by Doulton & Company, the hotel rises
through eight exuberant storeys to a French Mansard roof covered in intricate
green fishscale tiles.
When the Russell was officially opened on Saturday June 2nd 1900 both Sir John
Maple and Frederick Gordon were present at the inaugural fete. The hotel quickly
established itself as one of the most popular tourist hotels in the Capital.
Charles Fitzroy Doll was responsible for the architectural terracotta which
became infectious and the impact of his spectacular structure on Russell Square
was substantial. In defence to his Hotel Russell the plain yellow stock brick
facades of the early 19th century houses in the square were ‘Dolled up’ with the
addition of terracotta dressings to the window and door openings. The interiors
of the ground floor public rooms of the Hotel Russell are a lavish display of
what was known as a ‘palatial standard’ and they were judges at the time ‘a
superb success’. However the creation of the correct atmosphere for its wealthy
guests was not cheap. Maple & Co’s bill for the decoration alone came to more
than 25,000 pounds. That did not include the Pyranean Marble for the Hall and
stairs. Nor the Mosaic floor in the entrance by Rust’s Vitreous Mosaic Co, which
was described as a ‘quaintly humorous representation of the sun surrounded by
the signs of the zodiac.
During the Second World War the Russell was the only London hotel in the
Frederick Hotel Group that was not taken over by the War Office. The Russell was
however subject to bombing raids, indeed Mr Tugel, the Manager of the hotel
during the 1940’s reported that ‘several guests had suggested that the windows
of the Billiard Room should be bricked up, in the same way as had been done to
the Drawing Room windows.’ Thankfully the Russell managed to make it through the
war with very few disasters, although the magnificent dome that dominated the
skyline of the Square appears to have been lost during the conflict. It was
reported on 23rd April 1941 that ‘an incendiary bomb set fire to the roof at the
Hotel and the whole roof on the Bernard Street side was burned out and on the
Russell Square side as far as the tower.’"
Source
Hotel Russell website.