Shed your City skin and play the part of a Georgian aristocrat, writes Lucy Kenningham, after a stay at Batty Langley’s
For all I love the City of London (the people, the vibes, the architecture), it would be lying to call EC1 refined or calm. Buildings are constantly erected, after-work pints get out of hand. The urgent modernity of central London tends to smother the history and scrape away the charm. Too often the city of London is an area to barge through on your way to the office.
But what if I told you you could stay in a luxurious restored Georgian era guesthouse, right on the edge of the Square Mile?
On my walk from the office up to Spitalfields and Shoreditch, glass buildings jostled to block my view of the sky. Near Liverpool Street filthy pigeons swarm en masse while tourists and finance bros look like battalions preparing to cross each other.
But turn a corner just after Liverpool Street station and you will find Batty Langley’s hotel – if you know where to look. On a small cobbled street, the boutique haven is discreetly signed, entry – naturally – is via a buzzer. This is a guesthouse, not a hotel. Once you step in, you’re in a very different London – and you’re a very different person.
There’s no lobby. The receptionist politely gave me a large metal key to my room – the Batty Langley suite on the first floor – and I walked through the carpeted hallway, mirrors reflecting my new aristocratic reflection back to me. I walk past the dimly lit Tapestry Room and Parlour, which features Georgian sofas, art and an honesty bar. I don’t see anyone else.
It is only once I’ve opened my thick wooden door, walked past my fourposter bed and freestanding bath tub and opened the French doors onto a large private patio that I catch the soft sounds of the City once more. The terrace is almost unbelievably sheltered, a huge paved area with a bench and coffee table. Beautiful potted plants are dotted around the edge, and a huge, circular garden table with roomy chairs around it is shaded by an umbrella. Despite the buildings encircling it, the spot is an unexpected oasis. I can’t see anyone and there is just the slightest humming of a City soundscape.
But inside the walls of Batty Langley’s, the silence of another era emanates, the wood panels of the past shielding you from the present.
Every part of the guesthouse has been thought through – all the decorations are Georgian or convincing replicas. Soft lamplight guides guests to their rooms. Elegant wooden furniture covers the huge flatscreen television and fridge. In fact, it takes me rather too long to work out where these amenities are, encouraging me to browse the extensive collection of books. Altogether there are 3,500 tomes across the four floors of Langleys. It’s up to you whether you take the time to leaf through them all.
For 18 hours I live in a convincing historical illusion: one where you are a visiting Georgian member of the upper classes. You stretch out in a four-poster bed, reading the vintage Folio edition of Madame Bovary, drinking champagne in the kind of dignified seclusion that is rare in London.
I didn’t know I wanted a four poster bed, but I do now
There’s no restaurant, so from a leather bound menu my companion and I order room service via the phone. It’s unclear where the food comes from, but with a knock on the door two men who could only really be described as butlers appear with lavish silver trays displaying our rather excessive food order. The duo – which we come to refer to as Batty and Langley – set down our meal on the outdoor terrace. The food isn’t the best (I’d pass on the risotto and the ravioli), but the experience more than makes up for it. You’re also welcome to order food from the plethora of restaurants nearby, direct to your room.
I didn’t know I wanted a four poster bed, but I do now. I didn’t know I wanted two kind men bringing me breakfast on a silver tray in the morning, at a time of my choosing. Now I do. I didn’t know I needed a sturdy free-standing bath. I didn’t know I needed a personal terrace. But now I do.
There are 29 boutique rooms, all of which are different and named after a different historical character from Georgian London. Mine is named after Langley himself (1696-1751), an architect who published handbooks designed to help inexperienced clients plan their Georgian houses and gardens “in the most Grand Taste”.
I wish I had more time to poke around, write my novel on the mahogany desk, take another bubble bath, meet an eccentric character over a cocktail in the Parlour. Truly I am sad to shed this other person upon leaving. But writing this review a couple of months later, the impressive history and glamour of Batty Langley’s has stayed with me – and changed the way I walk through London, just a little bit.
Rooms at Batty Langley’s start from £325