Cumberland Hotel

From at least the late 18th century, in the middle of the Oxford Street front of the future hotel site there was an inn or coffee house called the General Wolfe, with livery stables in the yard behind it. By 1818, this had become the Hyde Park Hotel, and the street in front of it was called Hyde Park Place. In 1889, the street was renamed as Marble Arch, and the hotel also took the name. Before the redevelopment of the 1930s, the site contained about thirty houses, fronting onto four streets, a public house, and the office of the Marble Arch Electric Railway Station. Lying to the north of Oxford Street, it was just within the Borough of St Marylebone, and not that of Westminster. ==Construction==

Site preparation works on land at the western end of Oxford Street, facing Marble Arch and Hyde Park, were already under way in 1928. The digging of a great hole in the ground was begun, and Canadian timber, in lengths of 30 and 35 feet, ten or twelve inches square in thickness, was used for temporary shoring. The intended name of Cumberland Hotel had already been announced. and the builders were Holloway Brothers of London. The architect was F. J. Wills FRIBA, who had also designed the Strand Palace Hotel and the Regent Palace Hotel. The Cumberland Hotel was built on a steel frame and took more than three years to build. In May 1931, a workman died after falling from a gantry, and another man died in August of that year. The Western Mail noted on completion that "The night scene at the Marble Arch, London, has been considerably changed by the addition of the Cumberland Hotel with its floodlights." ==Fitting out==

Oliver Percy Bernard designed many of the interiors. There were a thousand bathrooms, all lined with tiles from Jackfield. The hotel boasted a lift which was "the first of a kind which travels at a rate of 500 feet a minute" It was reported on 4 December 1933 that new carpets from Yorkshire had been bought at a cost of £40,000 (), and that Wm. Rhodes. Ltd was supplying pillows for the one thousand bedrooms. On 7 December came reports that forty-five tons of Sheffield cutlery had arrived in London for the hotel, and it had received more than 900 "super box spring mattresses" and three thousand down pillows. ==Opening==

It was announced on 7 December 1933 that the opening of the new hotel was imminent, and that this would be marked on 11 December by Sir Isidore Salmon, chairman of J. Lyons and Co., the company behind the hotel, who would preside at a luncheon for a large number of invited guests. On the morning of 11 December, Salmon gave King George V and his wife Queen Mary a private tour of the hotel, lasting an hour. A history of the hotel's site and its development was published, by William Walcot, with a foreword by John Drinkwater. This noted that "the hotel windows would have commanded an excellent view of the executions of Perkin Warbeck, Jack Sheppard, and others on Tyburn gallows. At the luncheon, a number of toasts were proposed. In one to "the Press", Salmon said that no one understood better than Lyons the value of press advertising; Lord Camrose, owner of many newspapers, replied and called for a review of the licensing laws, noting that "If Messrs Lyons had built this hotel on the south side of Oxford Street, I could have had a drink until eleven o’clock at night." On 12 December 1933, the day the hotel opened for business, the Daily Express reported that "the majestic Cumberland Hotel... opens its doors to its first guests to-day" and was already famous. The Western Daily Press stated that a staff of some two thousand had been employed to look after guests and that the new hotel "has shown the world that British brains, enterprise and skill have yet to find their match". A further house-warming took place on the opening day, with Salmon welcoming "a large and influential party of guests". The Leeds Mercury commented drily on the day that "London people will regard the new Cumberland Hotel at the Marble Arch as an acquisition to be proud of, but the clientele will come mainly from the Provinces and overseas." However, the paper reported the next day that more than a thousand people had had lunch at the hotel on its first day, and within half an hour of the doors opening six women were visiting the hairdressing rooms to have work done on their hair. ==Notable events==

In May 1940, during the Second World War, Tyler Kent, a clerk at the Embassy of the United States in London who was stealing secret papers, used the hotel for meetings with an agent of German intelligence. Also in 1940, the artist Paul Nash stayed at the hotel and painted several watercolours. Alma Cogan was a resident singer at the hotel for two years. In 1949, she was talent-spotted there by Walter Ridley. On 11 September 1970, Jimi Hendrix gave his last interview in his suite at the Cumberland Hotel. He visited his suite on the day of his death, a week later. The Supremes planned new choreography for their show in the basement. ==Further reading==