In the heart of London, this destination is a surprise packet
The best reason to stay here isn’t even this magnificent hotel. It’s that we’re in a special pocket of the city most people don’t know much about.
There’s a scene in the coming-of-a-certain-age novel All Fours when Miranda July describes an exquisite hotel room, the kind her character (who is much like herself) can’t usually afford, but finds herself in by happenstance.
As I walked around the suite... (she writes) I began to weep… the bed was a beautiful bosom you’d never want to leave. Gilt mirrors, a small marble-topped table, a pair of little Louis XIV chairs gathered in a place where you might want to read a poem. The stationery, the robe, the lotion – each of these things was thicker and more exquisite than I’d previously been aware existed. I began to panic – how would I live after this, now knowing?
This pretty much happened to me at One Aldwych in London, where, aside from the French antique chairs, I stayed in a room almost exactly as July describes.
Sure enough, the packaging containing my toiletries (Europe has done away with single-use plastic) was a velvety kind of paper I had never felt before (turns out it’s “stone paper” – “tree free!”). The room had little books of poetry, London-themed whimsy, good art, lavish flowers and a chaise longue artfully positioned to take all this in, plus soft lighting and dusty pink plush carpeting that soothed my feet after a day beating the frozen London pavements, whereupon we returned to find sea salt chocolate truffles waiting for us. It all combined to make my stay at One Aldwych the undisputed pinnacle of decades of travel and occasional travel writing.
The attention to detail that permeates through the whole place (Mulled wine at the concierge desk, madam? Do try the green juice for breakfast…) probably has much to do with the fact that the historic hotel, which began life as the home of the Morning Post newspaper (Churchill reported on the Boer War for the Post – the swimming pool is now situated where the printing presses used to be) is now owned by a minted British family rather than a multinational chain like other luxury hotels in town. You can feel it in the smiles and the service.
I have the best room in the place: the terrace-house-sized Terrace Suite is replete with a
six-seater dining table, three bathrooms including a “guest bathroom” (but we thought we were the guests!) and palatial bedrooms. But all of the hotel’s signature suites are dazzling. Rooms like these are cripplingly expensive for most people. Of course, not everyone is most people, and in the words of Ferris Bueller after he’s stolen his best friend’s dad’s vintage Ferrari, If you have the means I highly recommend it, it is so choice.
And yet, the best reason to stay here isn’t even the hotel. It’s that we’re in a special pocket of the city most people don’t know much about. One Aldwych, on the outer edge of Covent Garden, is named for its street address and the area around it. When I visit at Christmas time, Aldwych is mercifully free of the crowds smothering Mayfair and Soho. We wander up to Regent Street to peek at the lights; the dozens of glittering angels that hover above the wintry streets are well worth a look but it’s almost impossible to move for the foot traffic.
Mere minutes away on Aldwych, one can breathe. One can also time travel. Check out the history – an Anglo-Saxon settlement existed here in the 7th century, while the name Aldewich was first recorded in 1211. In the 1400s a theatre on the site was lost to fire. In 1942, a V-1 rocket smashed into the street. In 1966, an IRA bomb prematurely exploded on a bus driving down Aldwych. Early in the millennium, when I became a Londoner, this was my stomping ground.
On the afternoon we arrive I step out of the hotel and cross the pedestrianised square (a recent, game-changing bit of town planning that occurred in 2021) toward magnificent Somerset House. On any given day you’ll marvel at the spectacular edifice then head for tea on one side of the quadrangle, or over to peruse famous impressionists at the Courtauld Gallery on the other side. But for eight weeks in winter in the middle of the courtyard, you’ll skate on one of the most beautiful ice rinks in all Christendom.
The next day I thank the lovely doorman with his impeccable manners (these guys are ex-military, surely) and take a right turn, crossing onto the Strand and down to Middle Temple, part of the warren-like Inns of Court which are as old and convoluted as the common law itself, for respite in a very English garden on the banks of the Thames. It’s spectacular in summer, but even when it’s 4C outside the hush and quiet here is restorative. Then it’s briefly into the warmth of the Tube (one stop on the Central Line from Temple station) to Holborn and the architect Sir John Soane’s museum; a row of Georgian houses stuffed with remarkable, eclectic and ingenious art and antiquities. I was first shown this truly hidden London gem by my remarkable, eclectic and ingenious friend, the late writer Elisabeth Wynhausen. It’s one reason the streets around Aldwych are meaningful to me. Another is, I think, because they hold a piece of the antipodes. Australia may be 10,000 miles
from London but five minutes east of One Aldwych is Australia House. Take a stroll over the road and gaze upon the bombastic facade with its great bronze sculpture Phoebus Driving the Horses of the Sun. In another century I ascended the stairs as an impoverished backpacker, my passport on the verge of expiry. The sound of Aussie accents filled me with homesickness even as I was overawed by the lavish interiors of the place.
Four minutes walk west of One Aldwych is The Savoy, where I was married. The art deco Mikado Room, one of a series of ornate meeting rooms decorated for different Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, was perfect for our 14 guests. Even if nuptials are not on your holiday agenda, beef Wellington at the Savoy Grill and an Old Fashioned at Hemingway’s beloved American Bar absolutely should be.
I finish retracing my steps and it’s back to my suite at One Aldwych. Braving the cold, I fling open the glass doors to the private terrace – a rare delight in London, particularly come the summer when it will be festooned with flowers. In the late afternoon dusk the lights of Theatreland flood our balcony – at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane Sigourney Weaver is doing The Tempest and in case you missed it, there’s Mamma Mia on at the Novello. Around the corner on Bow Street the Royal Ballet performs my favourite of all versions of The Nutcracker at the Opera House, twinkling in the northern hemisphere dark.
Next month it’ll be 10 years since I flew home to Australia after a decade living and working, falling in love, getting married and becoming a mother in the UK. Sometimes I feel a pull to return. But my few days wandering around Aldwych and the West End, picking my way through the streets up to the British Museum where, on a wintry February night a good many years ago I first saw my future husband, should tide me over for another decade.
Checklist
Getting there: One Aldwych is a 50-minute Tube ride from Heathrow Airport. The closest Tube station is Covent Garden.
Stay: One Aldwych (1 Aldwych, London, onealdwych.com) has 101-rooms including 15 suites. Deluxe rooms start at £690 ($1400). The Terrace suite starts at £3420.
Book: Somewhat to the bemusement of the people who run the place, One Aldwych has become wildly famous for its Charlie and the Chocolate Factory afternoon tea, which is booked solid despite having been around for years. The fairy floss embossed fizzy lifting drinks and snozberry jam and scones, hot chocolate with peaks of whipped cream and for grownups, such weird and wonderful things as a beetroot macron that could’ve been dreamed up by Wonka or Heston and which I could have eaten five of were all utterly enchanting. An afternoon of magic and colour on a grey London day.
Eat: The city has discovered brunch with a vengeance and long queues wait in the winter cold outside Apple Butter at Seven Dials, enticed by utterly OTT pancakes under an real life apple tree, and also for Drury cafe on Drury Lane. I do as I’ve always done and grab an espresso at Monmouth Coffee which, in my view, holds the mantle for best brew since London’s Great Defection from exclusive tea drinking a couple of decades back. Back on Aldwych, book lunch or dinner at The Delaunay, part of the Wolseley Group, for schnitzel and Dobos torte in a high-European brasserie without having to schlep over to the continent.
Dive: Into Samuel Pepys’ diaries with a 10-minute wander to Fleet Street to visit the ghosts of tabloid newspapers. The walk takes you via the gothic splendour of the Royal Courts of Justice, scene of recent cases like Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s defamation shambles.
Do: You’re in Theatreland, so book a show! Winter is Harry Potter season so we retreated from the cold into the world of JK Rowling and an epic Harry Potter and the Cursed Child double header at Cambridge Theatre. It starts at 1pm, and the first session goes til about 3.45pm. Visit on a Sunday and pre-book Dean Street Townhouse at Soho for the break. There’s time for a roast dinner before heading back to the theatre with full tummies for the second session at 6pm. Fun fact: Meghan Markle and Prince Harry had their first date on Dean Street but don’t let that put you off. This place is a modern English classic.