This talk compares Brown’s Hotel, which opened in London’s Mayfair district in 1832, to other luxury hotels in the capital to explain how the hotel as a building type was established, designed, equipped, managed, ritualised and developed. These hotels show how public buildings adapted in the Victorian age to new technology, starting life in the era of candlelight and carriages, and ending with electricity and the internal the combustion engine.
Andy Williamson, an historian and expert of the golden age of travel, is the author of Brown’s Hotel: A Family Affair, the definitive history of London’s oldest luxury hotel. He shares his knowledge of historic hotels on TV and radio.
All attendees will be sent a recording of the talk.
Image: East Grafton Church