The Gore London Luxury Hotel

Detailed Review

Over the past ten years, The Gore has become one of London's most sought-after venues for fashion shoots and locations. Indeed, it is often said that The Gore. has some of the most photographed rooms in the county. Its appeal to the design cognoscenti comes from its range of uniquely bedrooms and suites. With an eclectic collection of some 5,000 pictures and prints covering nearly every inch of wall space, each of the 49 rooms is individually decorated with antique furniture and fittings that have the patina of age. The deluxe rooms in particular encapsulate the eccentricity of the decor of this mellow old hotel where old-fashioned, solid Victorian style reflects genteel grandeur.

Press Quotes

"...privately-run hotel that boasts everything from antique prints and Oriental rugs to a gilded bed formerly owned by Judy Garland." The Economist 08

Independent Reviews

The Gore
By Joanna Monkhouse

The Gore has been a hotel since 1892, but has been privately-owned and run since the early 1990s by a group of first-time hoteliers who have made a speciality out of Victorian eccentricity - a style that can be also be sampled at Hazlitt’s in Soho and The Rookery in Smithfield.



The Gore’s 53 rooms are decorated with antique oak, walnut and mahogany furniture, oriental rugs and the hotel’s extensive collection of 5000 antique lithographs and prints. Many rooms have four-poster beds and whilst some standard rooms can be small, the larger rooms have comfortable leather sofas - the least sofabed-like sofabeds I’ve ever seen. Some rooms on the first floor have French doors opening onto a balcony. All have a phone, TV, minibar and safe.



Most bathrooms have combination baths, gilt-framed mirrors and brass taps. Some have freestanding roll top baths with clawfeet, and those in the deluxe rooms are particularly impressive - including large alcove baths with dinner plate-sized shower heads and throne toilets.



The deluxe rooms are named after the spinster sisters who ran the hotel at the turn of the century - Miss Fanny and Miss Ada, and their brother Major Cooke whose room has a more masculine slant. The ‘Venus’ room hosts Judy Garland’s carved and gilded bed and the bathroom’s tiled mural was uncovered during renovations. The ‘Dame Nellie’ room has an alcove bed fit for a diva, with leopard print chairs and a bath flanked by classical bronze sculptures. The last reminder of the hotel’s Elizabethan rooms that hosted mediaeval banquets in the 1950s is the magnificent Tudor Room with its beams, panelled walls and stained-glass windows. There are secret panels that lead to the bathroom and minstrel’s gallery and in winter the fire is lit in the huge open fireplace.



Bistro 190 and the dark and cosy 190 Bar are popular with locals and guests, especially at weekends. Meetings can be held either in the board room or in the hotel’s inviting drawing room, the Green Room.



With their friendly and personal service, the staff come to know the guests, as many come back to try out another of the highly original rooms. Located on Queensgate, a wide tree lined avenue just south of Hyde Park and next to the Royal Albert Hall, the Gore is conveniently placed for the shops in Kensington, Knightsbridge and Chelsea, as well as the nearby museums and exhibition halls.

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• The Gore
  By Angela Moore

  Sitting insouciantly on top of the reception desk at the Gore is a bust of Churchill, wearing a top hat. It sums up the hotel very neatly – a traditional English eccentric. The Gore has recently completed a sweeping, £2.5 million revamp, which has left it looking very snappy and fresh. Happily, though, it has lost none of its character.
  
  
  
  Downstairs, hundreds of framed sketches, oils, drawings, watercolours line the walls in the hallway and up the stairs. Good old Queen Victoria is a recurrent theme, staring sternly out of gilded frames or looking oddly coy in marble busts. Up the stone staircase, the helter-skelter of pictures on the walls thins out, replaced by the calmer effect of giant oils and tapestries
  
  
  
  In the small drawing room at the end of the hallway, one wall is lined with books, a collection to delight the most catholic of bookworms. You can sit on sofas by the fire and have tea and read. This is the kind of hotel where you feel quite comfortable taking an armful of books up to bed, or coming down to breakfast in your slippers.
  
  
  
  Staff are friendly and informal – possibly too much so for some guests. While we were having our breakfast (late, but within stated hours), the staff were clearing up and laying tables around us; we reported a housekeeping fault (alarming banging and rattling coming from pipes in our room) and reception were responsive but unapologetic. However, the laconic Australian duty manager who showed us around was clearly passionate about the hotel.
  
  
  
  The restaurant, 190 Queensgate, is a fairly popular bistrot destination for Kensington dwellers and travellers in the know. The bar, though, is really hopping. It’s a sexy, dark, wood-panelled room, with a long bar and a longer list of cocktails. Hidden away at the back of the room is a little snug, dramatically accessorised with scarlet curtains and a red velvet rope – you have to buy a bottle of champagne to take the space over for an evening but given the crush in the main bar on a Saturday night, it’s worth the investment. Crucially, the bar is now under ownership of the hotel again. They are keeping strict tabs on sound levels so the upstairs rooms won’t have problems with noise, which had previously been an issue with light-sleeping guests. We didn’t hear a thing.
  
  
  
  The rooms
  It’s really the rooms that have benefited most from the £2.50 million the hotel has spent on its refurbishment. Walls were knocked through to create more space. Bathrooms were entirely updated; they are now very smart and spacious, tiled with slate or marble, and some with large walk-in showers. Fittings were made especially for the specific rooms – here a vast, leggy basin, there an inset bath with a central showerhead.
  
  
  
  The rooms are bursting with character and individuality. Each one has a slightly different layout and décor – smart slate blue walls and striped silk drapes, or peachy walls with a half-tester bed hung with pretty rose-printed satin, to match the curtains. There are ornate gold-framed mirrors and interesting antique objets. Beds are all different but all have a dramatic carved wooden headboard, or a half-tester; there are also a few four-posters. They are genuinely comfortable and the linen is excellent. A standard double room has enough space to fit in a sofa and a desk; luxury doubles are much larger for not much more money.
  
  
  
  For an especially decadent weekend, book the Venus Room, one of the hotel’s suites. The bed is fantastic: a four-poster in a black satin-covered recess, it has an ornate and gilded headboard and is hung with heavy red and gold fringed drapes. The bathroom boasts a marvellously kitsch tiling frieze of Venus steering a chariot through the waves; opposite the bed hangs a large painting of a fatly reclining nude. Exotic, with a touch of the bordello, and great fun.

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• “The Victorian townhouse near Hyde Parks is classic English eccentric, bursting with character, warmth and quirky antiques.â€�