Grand Hotel and General Newsroom

“The finest hotel in the Midlands”

Everything about the Grand Hotel was designed as a statement in luxury and opulence: from its European Renaissance style exterior and “wedding cake” top to public rooms full of marble fireplaces, onyx pillars and elegant chandeliers. Not long after it opened in 1898 it was described as “the temporary home of the elite of English Society and generally admitted to be the finest hotel not only in Leicester, but in the Midlands”. Guests enjoyed the very best amenities including a coffee room and Palm Court.

It was built between 1897 and 1898 by two local architects, Cecil Ogden and Amos Hall, who was responsible for the frontage facing Belvoir Street, in what has been described as a 'grand Franco-German Renaissance’ style.  In effect, this was a building which had to look distinctive and stand out from the many warehouses and factories nearby of similar size and scale, so the architects used styles from Europe of the sixteenth century to evoke a sense of opulence.

It replaced the Blue Lion Coaching Inn, a Victorian public house, which was demolished along with the Carlton Hotel and the Conservative Club.  Two years after its completion, Amos Hall returned to add a further statement of grandeur, adding the ‘wedding cake’ top to the corner of Granby Street and Belvoir Street, in a design which was influenced by several of Sir Christopher Wren’s London churches.  Hall also designed Leicester's Silver Arcade.

Famous guests

In its hey-day the Grand Hotel played host to celebrities and high profile figures in society and politics. Winston Churchill, then a Liberal MP and Home Secretary, stayed here in 1909. Many society balls were held in the grandeur of the hotel’s King’s Hall.

Guests at the Aero Club Ball, 1930. Amy Johnson is in the centre

The distinguished guests at the Leicester Aero Club's annual ball in 1930 included aviator Amy Johnson who just two years previously had become the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia.  Her host was Leicestershire brewer, politician and philanthropist William Lindsay Everard, a lifelong supporter of aviation who founded the Air Defence Cadet Corp which is now the Air Training Corp. 

The General Newsroom

Facing the Grand Hotel, on the corner of Belvoir and Granby Streets, is the Grade II listed General Newsroom, another fine example of Leicester’s late-Victorian heritage. This impressive building is decorated with classical motifs and the Greek muses, (goddesses of the arts and sciences). Newspaper reading rooms provided information about the contemporary world and assisted in public education and civic engagement.

The first general newsroom built in 1837, demolished in the late 1890s. Leicestershire Record Office

It replaced an earlier General News Room and Permanent Library which was designed by local architect William Flint, and opened in 1837. It was where the citizens of Leicester could read the latest local, national and international news.  The present building, which served the same purpose, was also the design of a local architectural practice, Henry Langdon Goddard, and opened in 1898.

Goddard based his design on the work of the London architect John Belcher, richly decorated with numerous exuberant features including eight of the nine muses and other classical reliefs set into shell-like niches. In Greek mythology, the muses were deities who gave artists, philosophers and individuals the necessary inspiration for creation their art, music and writings. 

Find out how to visit The Grand Hotel.