·
< UK & Ireland
The Stafford's American Bar sits in 380-year-old wine cellars that were used as air-raid shelters during the Blitz — the walls are covered in memorabilia left by American and Canadian servicemen who drank there during the war. The hotel itself is tucked behind St. James's Palace in a quiet cul-de-sac, which gives it a seclusion that more prominent London hotels struggle to achieve. The Carriage House rooms occupy a converted stable block. 105 rooms, and the kind of old-fashioned discretion that makes it a favourite of diplomats and intelligence officers, though naturally neither would confirm this.
Go deeper...
Living London History — A war legend and 17th-century cellars
Luxury London — The White Mouse of St James's
Look Up London — The cellars under St James's