£60m facelift for Hilton Paddington

THE Great Western Royal Hotel at Paddington Station opens its doors next week after a three-year, £60m facelift that has banished the last fragments of swirly brown carpets and orange curtains and restored the hotel to its Victorian splendour.

The new Hilton Paddington is aimed at time-pressed business flyers, and has live flight information from Heathrow available in the lobby, direct access to check-in desks for 20 major airlines and in-house re-ticketing facilities.

Hilton is managing the hotel for owner Muirgold, the vehicle of Gulshan Bhatia, recently named the 42nd wealthiest Asian in Britain.

The hotel, offering weary travellers all mod cons, harks back to the glory days of the steam age, when it also boasted state-of-the-art technology. In 1854, the year it was opened by Queen Victoria's husband Prince Albert, this consisted of telephones, pneumatic tube-messaging and, most wondrously, electric lighting in every bedroom. Today's jet-lagged execs will each have the use of three phones, including one in the bathroom, as well as modem ports and laptop safes and lights. A double room costs an average of £190 a night, compared with the four shillings guests paid in 1854.

The hotel, built to resemble a Louis XIV chateau, has a grade II listing. The restoration work has been carried out in consultation with English Heritage.