Leonard Bentley
The Haymarket Hotel
This is a real photograph postcard available to guests of the Haymarket Hotel on the corner of Haymarket and Piccadilly. It was built as the Jermyn Court Hotel over the Piccadilly Circus underground station in 1910-1911 and was sold in 1925 when it became the Haymarket Hotel. The photograph shows the brand-new Capitol Theatre on the left on the corner of Jermyn Street, the cinema is showing the Italian silent epic, “The last days of Pompeii”, based on the book by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. It was shown during the last week of June 1926 and was not very popular, three films have been made of the book, two silent and one talkie, none of which was very successful. The police Constable on point duty at the junction of Haymarket and Piccadilly is from Vine Street and the traffic point would soon become redundant when on July 19th the Piccadilly gyratory system was inaugurated and the Haymarket became a one-way street. The 150 rooms were refurbished by the Maples furniture store each one of which had hot and cold running water, and that would cost you 15 shillings a night. The hotel became popular with husbands who wished to divorce their wives after the 1923 Matrimonial Causes Act provided that a divorce could be granted on the petition of the wife solely because of her husband’s adultery. The contrivance where men provided their wives with pre-arranged evidence of adultery by renting a room and staying overnight with a usually unidentified lady became common so if there was an agreement to end the marriage the husband usually took it upon himself to be the guilty party. Other grounds for divorce did not come into it, there had to be a visible sign of physical misconduct. The Haymarket Hotel did not last long, it was sold in 1931 and became Criterion House which I believe was an office building. In the 1960s the building became the headquarters of the Forte group which owned it up to its demolition in the 1980s. The building erected on the site is now the biggest tourist souvenir store in London and since 1992 there has been a rather nice fountain with sculptures of the four horses of Helios in the corner niche.
The Haymarket Hotel
This is a real photograph postcard available to guests of the Haymarket Hotel on the corner of Haymarket and Piccadilly. It was built as the Jermyn Court Hotel over the Piccadilly Circus underground station in 1910-1911 and was sold in 1925 when it became the Haymarket Hotel. The photograph shows the brand-new Capitol Theatre on the left on the corner of Jermyn Street, the cinema is showing the Italian silent epic, “The last days of Pompeii”, based on the book by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. It was shown during the last week of June 1926 and was not very popular, three films have been made of the book, two silent and one talkie, none of which was very successful. The police Constable on point duty at the junction of Haymarket and Piccadilly is from Vine Street and the traffic point would soon become redundant when on July 19th the Piccadilly gyratory system was inaugurated and the Haymarket became a one-way street. The 150 rooms were refurbished by the Maples furniture store each one of which had hot and cold running water, and that would cost you 15 shillings a night. The hotel became popular with husbands who wished to divorce their wives after the 1923 Matrimonial Causes Act provided that a divorce could be granted on the petition of the wife solely because of her husband’s adultery. The contrivance where men provided their wives with pre-arranged evidence of adultery by renting a room and staying overnight with a usually unidentified lady became common so if there was an agreement to end the marriage the husband usually took it upon himself to be the guilty party. Other grounds for divorce did not come into it, there had to be a visible sign of physical misconduct. The Haymarket Hotel did not last long, it was sold in 1931 and became Criterion House which I believe was an office building. In the 1960s the building became the headquarters of the Forte group which owned it up to its demolition in the 1980s. The building erected on the site is now the biggest tourist souvenir store in London and since 1992 there has been a rather nice fountain with sculptures of the four horses of Helios in the corner niche.