place

The Wolseley

2003 establishments in EnglandBuildings and structures completed in 1921Grade II* listed buildings in the City of WestminsterRestaurants established in 2003Restaurants in London
Tourist attractions in the City of Westminster
1–3 Arlington Street and 157–160 Piccadilly
1–3 Arlington Street and 157–160 Piccadilly

The Wolseley is a restaurant located at 160 Piccadilly in London, England, next to the Ritz Hotel. Designed by the architect William Curtis Green, the Grade II* listed building was erected by Wolseley Motors in 1921 as their regional offices with a ground floor showroom. The ground floor was occupied by a branch of Barclays Bank between 1927 and 1999. It was a Chinese restaurant for a couple of years then reopened in 2003 as an upscale European restaurant after renovation by British restaurateurs Chris Corbin and Jeremy King.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article The Wolseley (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

The Wolseley
Piccadilly, City of Westminster Mayfair

Geographical coordinates (GPS) Address Phone number Website External links Nearby Places
placeShow on map

Wikipedia: The WolseleyContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 51.5074 ° E -0.141 °
placeShow on map

Address

The Wolseley

Piccadilly 157-160
W1J 9EB City of Westminster, Mayfair
England, United Kingdom
mapOpen on Google Maps

Phone number

call+442074996996

Website
thewolseley.com

linkVisit website

linkWikiData (Q7775450)
linkOpenStreetMap (289859695)

1–3 Arlington Street and 157–160 Piccadilly
1–3 Arlington Street and 157–160 Piccadilly
Share experience

Nearby Places

Devonshire Club
Devonshire Club

The Devonshire Club was a London gentlemen's club which was established in 1874 and was disbanded in 1976. Throughout its existence it was based at 50 St James's Street. The major Liberal club of the day was the Reform Club, but in the wake of the 1868 Reform Act's extension of the franchise, the waiting list for membership from the larger electorate grew to such an extent that a new club was formed to accommodate these new Liberal voters. The clubhouse was on the western side of St James's Street. The original intention was to call it the 'Junior Reform Club', along the model of the Junior Carlton Club formed in 1866, but complaints from the Reform Club's members led it to being named the Devonshire, in honour of its first chairman, the Duke of Devonshire, an aristocrat from a long line of Liberals. The club was fortunate in obtaining the St James's Street premises of Crockford's Club, a renowned eighteenth century club which had closed down in 1845. The Devonshire did well in its first decade, but found itself in an awkward position from the 1880s upon the establishment of the National Liberal Club. With a further extension of the franchise in 1885, the much larger National Liberal was aimed at these new electors, and the Devonshire came to possess neither the prestige of Brooks's or the Reform, nor the broader appeal of the National Liberal. The Devonshire soon lost its political flavour. In the 1960s the Golfers Club shared the premises using a club room at the back of the building and there was also a Masonic temple on site, catering for those lodges without premises. After a great deal of financial trouble in the 1970s (mirrored in many other clubs of the time, including the Reform, the Carlton, the St James's, the United University, the Junior Carlton, the Army and Navy, and the United Service Club), it finally closed in 1976, with its membership being absorbed by the East India Club.

The Ritz Hotel, London
The Ritz Hotel, London

The Ritz London is a Grade II listed 5-star hotel in Piccadilly, London, England. A symbol of high society and luxury, the hotel is one of the world's most prestigious and best known. The Ritz has become so associated with luxury and elegance that the word "ritzy" has entered the English language to denote something that is ostentatiously stylish, fancy, or fashionable.The hotel was opened by Swiss hotelier César Ritz in 1906, eight years after he established the Hôtel Ritz Paris. It began to gain popularity towards the end of World War I, with politicians, socialites, writers and actors in particular. David Lloyd George held a number of secret meetings at the Ritz in the latter half of the war, and it was at the Ritz that he made the decision to intervene on behalf of Greece against Turkey. Noël Coward was a notable diner at the Ritz in the 1920s and 1930s. Owned by the Bracewell Smith family until 1976, David and Frederick Barclay purchased the hotel for £80 million in 1995. They spent eight years and £40 million restoring it to its former grandeur. In 2002, it became the first hotel to receive a Royal warrant from the Prince of Wales for its banquet and catering services. In 2020, it was sold to a Qatari investor.The exterior is structurally and visually Franco-American in style, with little trace of English architecture, and heavily influenced by the architectural traditions of Paris. The facade on the Piccadilly side is 231 feet (70 m), 115 feet (35 m) on the Arlington Street side, and 87 feet (27 m) on the Green Park side. At the corners of the pavilion roofs of the Ritz are large green copper lions, the emblem of the hotel. The Ritz has 111 rooms and 25 suites. The interior was designed mainly by London and Paris based designers in the Louis XVI style. Marcus Binney describes the great suite of ground-floor rooms as "one of the all-time masterpieces of hotel architecture" and compares it to a royal palace with its "grand vistas, lofty proportions and sparkling chandeliers". The Ritz's most widely known facility is the Palm Court, which has traditionally hosted the famous "Tea at the Ritz". It is an opulently decorated cream-coloured Louis XVI setting, with panelled mirrors in gilt bronze frames. In 2022, afternoon tea has been served in the hotel’s former Ballroom located in The Ritz Club, on the lower ground floor of the hotel. The hotel has six private dining rooms, the Marie Antoinette Suite, with its boiserie, and the rooms within the Grade II* listed William Kent House. The Rivoli Bar, built in the Art Deco style, was designed in 2001 by interior designer Tessa Kennedy to resemble the bar on the Orient Express.

National Institution of Fine Arts

The National Institution of Fine Arts was a short-lived Victorian-era art society founded in London to provide alternative exhibition space for artists. Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Ford Madox Brown notably exhibited there. The organisation began as the "Institution for the Free Exhibition of Modern Art" in 1847 ("Free Exhibition" for short), and mounted shows from 1848–49 in a temporary building known as "St. George's Gallery" on Knightsbridge (road), next to Hyde Park, London. Its purpose was stated in an 1848 catalogue, "Freedom for the Artist, certainty of Exhibition for his works, and the Improvement of the Public Taste." The society then changed its name to the "National Institution of Fine Arts" ("National Institution" for short) and from 1850–61 exhibited works at the old Portland Gallery at 316 Regent Street. The National Institution aimed to provide a less-restrictive and more equitable alternative to the established exhibitions at places like the Royal Academy. The organisers allocated space by lottery, so there was no favouritism, allowed artists more control over the display of their pictures, and space was cheaper — making it more accessible to women artists who suffered discrimination by other exhibiting bodies. The exhibition was "free" in the sense that any artist was welcome to exhibit. Dante Gabriel Rossetti exhibited his first major oil painting, The Girlhood of Mary Virgin, at the Free Exhibition in March 1849, and in April 1850 Ecce Ancilla Domini at the National Institution. Ford Madox Brown also exhibited there in 1848 with Wycliffe reading his Translation of the New Testament to John of Gaunt and in 1849 with The Young Mother and Lear and Cordelia. Robert Scott Lauder was the first president of the National Institution. Chambers's Edinburgh Journal described exhibitors at the National Institution as "..mainly composed of dissenters from the other associations — gentlemen who conceive that they have been ill-treated by Hanging Committees, and a large class of juvenile but promising artists, who resort to the less crowded institutions in the hope of there meeting with better places for their works than in the older and more established bodies".