The Gore, London, United Kingdom

Sitting insouciantly on top of the reception desk at the Gore is a bust of Churchill, wearing a top hat. It sums up this luxury hotel very neatly – a traditional English eccentric. The Gore in London has recently completed a sweeping £2.5 million revamp, which has left it looking very snappy and fresh. Happily, though, it has lost none of its character.

The facilities

Downstairs at the Gore, hundreds of framed sketches, oils, drawings and watercolours line the walls in the hallway and up the stairs. Good old Queen Victoria is a recurrent theme, staring sternly out of gilded frames or looking oddly coy in marble busts. Up the stone staircase, the helter-skelter of pictures on the walls thins out, replaced by the calmer effect of giant oils and tapestries.

In the small drawing room at the end of the Gore’s hallway, one wall is lined with books, a collection to delight the most catholic of bookworms. You can sit on sofas by the fire and have tea while reading. This is the kind of luxury hotel where you feel quite comfortable taking an armful of books up to bed or coming down to breakfast in your slippers.

The restaurant, 190 Queensgate, is a fairly popular bistro destination for Kensington dwellers and travellers in the know. The bar, though, is really hopping. It’s a sexy, dark, wood-panelled room, with a long bar and a longer list of cocktails. Hidden away at the back of the room of this luxury hotel is a cosy hideaway, dramatically accessorised with scarlet curtains and a red velvet rope. You have to buy a bottle of champagne to take the space over for an evening, but given the crush in the main bar on a Saturday night, it’s worth the investment. Crucially, the bar is now under ownership of the Gore again. They are keeping strict tabs on sound levels so the upstairs rooms won’t have problems with noise, which had previously been an issue with light-sleeping guests. We didn’t hear a thing.

The rooms

It’s really the 50 rooms that have benefited most from the £2.5 million this luxury hotel has spent on its refurbishment. Walls were knocked through to create more space. Bathrooms were entirely updated and they are now very smart and spacious, tiled with slate or marble, and some with large walk-in showers. Fittings were made especially for the specific rooms – here a vast, leggy basin, there an inset bath with a central showerhead.

The rooms at the Gore are bursting with character and individuality. Each one has a slightly different layout and décor – smart slate blue walls and striped silk drapes, or peachy walls with a half-tester bed hung with pretty rose-printed satin to match the curtains. There are ornate gold-framed mirrors and interesting antique objects. Beds are all different but all have a dramatic carved wooden headboard, or a half-tester; there are also a few four-posters. They are genuinely comfortable and the linen is excellent at this luxury hotel. A standard double room has enough space to fit in a sofa and a desk and luxury doubles are much larger for not much more money.

For an especially decadent weekend at the Gore, book the Venus Room, one of the luxury hotel’s suites. The bed is fantastic: a four-poster in a black satin-covered recess, it has an ornate and gilded headboard and is hung with heavy red and gold fringed drapes. The bathroom boasts a marvellously kitsch tiling frieze of Venus steering a chariot through the waves and opposite the bed hangs a large painting of a fatly reclining nude. Exotic, with a touch of the bordello, and great fun.