The Journal

The Royal National Hotel occupies a distinctive position in London’s hospitality landscape, but not through size alone. Built in the 1970s as part of the wider Imperial Hotels estate, it was conceived as a solution to rising visitor numbers in the city, to absorb unprecedented volumes of domestic and international guests, in an era when the capital’s tourism appeal was booming thanks to the Swinging Sixties. Its prominent location just off Russell Square is a nexus for everything from literary heritage to academic institutions and museums. However closely tied into the cosmopolitan buzz of London, the hotel’s development pursued a very different ambition.