Cadogan Hotel

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Blue plaque to Lillie Langtree
Blue plaque to Lillie Langtree

The Cadogan Hotel is one of London's most prestigious luxury hotels and restaurants. Built in 1887, it is situated on Sloane Street, Knightsbridge. The private garden houses tennis courts, jogging track, and children's playground. Its award-winning restaurant offers modern British cuisine with a French influence. There is a cocktail bar and afternoon tea is served in the drawing room.

Lillie Langtry, famous actress and close friend of Edward VII, lived at 21 Pont Street from 1892 to 1897. Long after she had sold the house, Lillie would stay in her old bedroom, by then a part of the hotel. A blue plaque commemorates this.

Today The Cadogan has the feel of a private townhouse steeped with British old-world elegance. The experience is complemented by touches of unexpected modernity, which are subtly woven in to bring this historical building into the 21st Century.

[edit] Oscar Wilde

Shortly after opening, the hotel became infamous for the arrest of Oscar Wilde on 6 April 1895, in room no. 118. He was charged with "committing acts of gross indecency with other male persons" (a euphemism for any sex between males) under Section 11 of the 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Act. Despite pleas by friends to flee the country, Wilde chose to stay and martyr himself for his cause. The events in the room were immortalised by the poet laureate John Betjeman in his tragic poem The arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel.

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