Red Carnation Hotels

HISTORY

The Montague on the Gardens is a grade 2 listed building situated in the historical area of Bloomsbury, close to the British Museum and consists of nine Georgian terraced houses, which were originally built around 1815, by James Burton, whose famous architect son, Decimus, helped in the design. (Decimus Burton designed The Athenaeum Club, Buckingham Palace Archway on Constitution Hill, conservatories at Kew Gardens and Chatsworth, plus many period buildings in Royal Tunbridge Wells).

The area is most famous for giving it's name to the Bloomsbury Group, some of whom stayed in one of the nine houses making up the hotel and where the famous group used to come for many meetings.  Virginia Woolf, Clive Bell, Duncan Grant, Vanessa Bell and popular writers such as Arthur Conan Doyle of "Sherlock Holmes" fame lived in Bloomsbury.

The Georgian houses were part of The Montague House (now the British Museum). The Duke of Bedford was living in Montague's House and donated these apartments to his staff, which afterwards became a nurses' hostel. On the 1st of April 1970, three of the nine Georgian Houses were refurbished for use as a hotel, the Montague Park Hotel. Red Carnation took over the Montague Hotel in 1996 and transformed it into a four star deluxe property complete with garden facing conservatories, wood deck, terrace and 11 individually decorated suites. Full central heating and air conditioning was installed in 2001 in every guest room and all public areas. More recently is the refurbishment of 42 luxurious Bloomsbury rooms together with the installation of a fully integrated entertainment and communications system with High speed internet, WiFi and flat screen TV's.