When you’re a business traveller you can make sure the place you’re staying in has all the facilities you need but know next to nothing about the location it’s based in. Hectic schedules and back to back meetings often mean that even if you did know a lot about the location you might not get time to see much of it. But you should. Expand your surroundings, get outside and explore where you’re staying. Here is Clarendon’s fact file on each of our locations, designed especially for business travellers.
Hammersmith
Home to our serviced apartments in Hammersmith
Hammersmith and Fulham is London’s fourth smallest borough. The 1908 Olympics were hosted close to Hammersmith at White City. They were meant to be held in Italy but an eruption at Mount Vesuvius meant they had to be moved. Hammersmith is renowned as a cultural hotspot with the world famous Eventim Apollo, formerly the Hammersmith Apollo, which hosts both musical and comedy acts. There is also the Lyric Theatre and a huge cinema on the King’s Road. The area has great transport links with the A4 nearby and the tube station with four underground lines; District, Circle, Hammersmith and City and Piccadilly. Also, did you know that Hammersmith appears in Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations? It’s the home of the Pocket family where Pip stays when they go boating on the Thames.
Covent Garden
Home to Clarendon’s Covent Garden serviced apartments
Covent Garden’s name came from a time when a convent/monastery was located on the spot. When Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries in 1536 it ceased to be owned by the church and the Duke of Bedford took over the land. The stunning Covent Garden Piazza was originally inspired by the traditional European piazzas and was designed to create one of the first (of many) public spaces in London. The piazza was to have an enormous influence on town planners across the UK, not just in London. Over 44 million people visit Covent Garden every year, making it ones of the most popular tourist attractions in the world.
Holborn and Goodge Street
Home to Clarendon’s serviced apartments in Holborn and Goodge Street
This is an historic corner of London; Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors was first performed in Gray’s Inn Hall in 1594. The tube station isn’t actually on Goodge Street (it’s just around the corner) but it too has a rich history; built in the early twentieth century it is one of only eight of London’s Underground stations with a World War II-era deep-level shelter for air raids. The shelter was used by the Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force during the war. When General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe announced the invasion of France on the 6th June in 1944 it was in a radio broadcast from that very shelter. Two of London’s most prominent buildings are in Holborn; The Royal Courts of Justice and the BT Tower. The Royal Courts are imposing enough to terrify even the innocent with a rumoured 1,000 rooms and three and a half miles of corridor. Meanwhile the BT Tower on Cleveland Street is one of London’s tallest buildings and was open to the public until an IRA bomb in 1971.
So next time you’re staying at one of Clarendon’s serviced apartments make sure to check our fact files and get to know the neighbourhood on your doorstep while you’re here.