Kimpton Fitzroy London
The terracotta palace on Russell Square, built by the architect who designed the Titanic’s dining room — for over a century known simply as the Hotel Russell.
At a glance
The Kimpton Fitzroy fills the east side of Russell Square, in Bloomsbury. Built in 1898 and opened in 1900 as the Hotel Russell, it is one of London’s great Victorian hotel façades — a cliff of pinkish “tea with milk” terracotta that has watched over the square for more than a century.
History
The hotel was designed by the architect Charles Fitzroy Doll for the Frederick Hotels Company, built in 1898 and opened in 1900. Doll modelled it loosely on the Château de Madrid near the Bois de Boulogne in Paris, and clad it in decorative thé-au-lait terracotta. It was among the first London hotels to give every room its own bathroom.
Doll is also remembered for a stranger connection: he designed the first-class dining room of the RMS Titanic, based on the one he had built here, and the hotel’s restaurant — now called Fitz’s — is said to be almost identical to it. After a major restoration the hotel reopened in 2018, and was renamed the Kimpton Fitzroy London later that year, ending more than a century as the Hotel Russell.
What you see
The façade is a set-piece of late-Victorian confidence: life-size statues of four queens — Elizabeth I, Mary II, Anne and Victoria — stand above the entrance, carved by the sculptor Henry Charles Fehr.
Across the first-floor spandrels Doll set the coats of arms of the nations of the world as they stood in 1898, a small frozen map of the late Victorian order.
Cultural significance
The Hotel Russell is one of the buildings that gave Bloomsbury its grand scale, and its Titanic link makes it an unexpected survivor: a room lost at sea in 1912 can still, in effect, be dined in on Russell Square.
Key facts
- Built / opened: 1898 / 1900, as the Hotel Russell
- Architect: Charles Fitzroy Doll (who also designed the Titanic’s dining room)
- Material: decorative thé-au-lait terracotta; four Queens by Henry Charles Fehr
- Location: Russell Square, Bloomsbury, London
- Renamed: Kimpton Fitzroy London, 2018
Practical information & getting there
The hotel faces Russell Square, opposite Russell Square Underground station (Piccadilly line); Holborn and King’s Cross are a short walk. The restaurant and bar are open to non-residents.
Sources & resources
- Victorian Web — Hotel Russell, designed by C. Fitzroy Doll
- Exploring London — “The Hotel Russell (the Kimpton Fitzroy London)”
- Layers of London — Hotel Russell
- EPR Architects — Kimpton Fitzroy
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