The Lanesborough is a 5-star hotel on Hyde Park Corner in Knightsbridge, central London, England. The hotel is operated by the Oetker Collection. It occupies the neoclassical former building of St George's Hospital, which is listed Grade II*.[1] The hotel is situated next to Hyde Park Corner tube station.
History
St George's Hospital was opened in the original Lanesborough House, the home in London of the Viscounts Lanesborough, in 1733. By the 1800s, the hospital was falling into disrepair. Lanesborough House was demolished to make way for a new 350-bed facility. Building began in 1827 under architect William Wilkins. The new building was operational by 1844,[2] and served continuously as a hospital until the hospital transferred in the 1970s to Tooting, south London, leaving the Hyde Park Corner premises vacant in 1980. When the health service decided to shut St George's Hospital, as the building then was, it was found that when the former Duke of Westminster sold the building to the state, he had inserted a clause in the agreement allowing his estate to buy it back at the same price if the building ever ceased to be a hospital. The Duke of Westminster duly took up the option to buy the building for its 19th-century price, £6,000.