Set Up:
Bond is having a bathe in the Grand Hotel Europe in St. Petersburg, Russia. Only this is not the Grand Hotel, the exteriors which is seen for all of two seconds is The Langham Hotel in Portland Place. But how was this wizardry achieved? Well they simply removed the Hilton Hotel Flag and replaced it with the standard of the new Russian Republic. Before the Hilton bought the hotel The BBC purchased it.
In fact according to Wiki,
One BBC employee who stayed at the Langham was Guy Burgess, one of the ‘Cambridge Five’, a spy ring that supplied official secrets to the Soviets during the Cold War. In 1980, the BBC unsuccessfully applied for planning permission to demolish the building and replace it with an office development designed by Norman Foster. (Way to go BEEB).
Today The Langham is owned by a Hong Kong company called Great Eagle Holdings.
Can you go inside and nose around?
Yeah of course. I sauntered around the lobby area and mooched my way into a bar that was closed. There is also The Wigmore bar adjacent but I didn’t go in there. I enquired about breakfast because I was a little peckish. The kind lady said that they could seat me, and that I didn’t need to be a guest to eat. I saw that the full english was £32 on the menu and said I had to go meet someone in the bar first, which was a lie. I instead helped myself to a free coffee in the lobby and left.
Interesting to know
According to James Bond’s London by Gary Giblin,
The ‘love scene’ between Bond and Xenia was shot in the studio, since the Langham did not then have a pool.’
Closest Bond Location: Madame Tussauds – Baker Street
Closest Pint: The Wigmore inside the hotel. Recommendations welcome. I walked to Regents Park after and found no pubs for a good ten minutes in that direction.
View this post on Instagram
