Designed to tell a story, the new Great Scotland Yard Hotel, takes an iconic London building—the former hallmark of the Metropolitan Police—and brings it into a new era. Sitting around the corner from Trafalgar Square and just off Whitehall is the Hyatt’s first Unbound Collection property in the UK, which opened in December 2019. The red-brick building stands tall and formidable on a narrow and hidden London street, as this former police headquarters has been entirely rebuilt and renovated, including a two-floor extension. The result is a fun, witty and whimsical 168-bedroom hotel, with a ground floor dedicated to a host of clever bars and restaurant, and a large basement meeting space below. An unexpected element, comes in the form of the gargantuan five-storey townhouse, which serves as the hotel’s landmark Presidential Suite.
Originally, the site was a castle used by Scottish royalty as their London residence in medieval times—which explains the hotel name. Then from the 1820s until late into the 19th century, it was well worn as the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, following a careening history beginning with Sir Robert Peel’s ‘bobbies’ to modern day.
Stories from the hotel’s iconic history fill the hallways. Art consultant Sarah Percy-Davis curated more than 600 specially commissioned paintings and artifacts across the property—many of which contain nods to the Met police or riffs on the infamous criminals whose handiwork touched this building and its surrounds. There is no shortage of stories: Jack the Ripper’s crimes were investigated here; Charles Dickens joined officers on their nightly rounds; Arthur Conan Doyle used the venue as a key destination in his detective tales, to name but a few.
