St James's Club and Hotel
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The St James's Club & Hotel is a five star hotel[citation needed] at 7-8, Park Place, St James’s, London SW1A 1LP.
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[edit] Facilities
The hotel has fifty-six rooms and twelve suites, many of which have their own terraces, plus a penthouse with a party deck for sixty people.[1] Following renovations and reopening in spring of 2008, it will be known as the 'The St James Hotel and Club'.[1]
[edit] History
The hotel says at its web site that it "first opened its doors, as a gentlemen’s chamber for the English aristocracy, in 1892."[1] At that time the original St James's Club was elsewhere. However, the buildings at 7-8, Park Place, were erected as blocks of flats in 1891-92.[2]
A club known as the Field Club was at 7, Park Place, in 1889. On 13 May 1889, the police raided the club and found baccarat in progress. Twenty-one persons were arrested, "among whom were three English and several French and Belgian noblemen..." Among those arrested were the Earl of Dudley (later Governor-General of Australia), Lord Lurgan, 'Lord Paulet' (probably a son of the 15th Marquess of Winchester) and Baron Ferraro.[3]
The sporting Sir John Dugdale Astley, 3rd Baronet, died in his chambers at 7, Park Place, 10 October 1894.[4]
By 1960, the flats were being called Old St James's House, a name apparently without historical support. They were originally planned with forty-four sets of residential chambers, plus service rooms.[5].
There is no connection with the former St James's Club founded in 1857 by Earl Granville and the Marchese d'Azeglio.
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ a b c stjamesclubandhotel.co.uk (accessed 12 January 2008)
- ^ Survey of London vols 29-30 (1960) covering the parish of St James's Westminster, at british-history.ac.uk (accessed 12 January 2008)
- ^ The New York Times archive (accessed 12 January 2008)
- ^ Astley, Sir John Dugdale, in Dictionary of National Biography
- ^ London County Council, Survey of London
