Christmas Lunch at Jury’s Hotel

2 December 2000

One of the most confusing things about the Central Club YWCA commission was why Sir Edwin had been asked to design a hostel for young working women, but on entering the building it became obvious that this was no ordinary YWCA. Fund raising for the building had been done at the highest levels of London society in the late twenties and both the exteriors and interiors showed that this was intended to be a building of rare refinement. With its foundation stone laid by Queen Mary and formally opened by the Duchess of York, the club was created to provide “an elegant centre where mutual interest between woman and woman on a Christian basis might be worked out from which no concerns affecting the welfare of women and girls should be left out.” However despite society and Royal patronage in its early years, the club was never financially successful and it closed in 1998. In September 2000, after the building was purchased by the Jurys Hotel Group, Jurys Great Russell Street opened. It was an enormous task to take the maze of Lutyens planning and later additions, which was in a terrible state both decoratively and structurally, and turn it into the sophisticated hotel that exists today.

Although usually praised only for the severity of the exterior, there is a lot of fine detail inside the building. It also has a complicated series of levels where Lutyens inserted several two-storey entertaining spaces and the original swimming pool. One cannot see any of this from the exterior and even inside the building it can be quite hard to work out how and where the spaces fit.

Arriving to a glass of mulled wine in the foyer we took a tour of the building, including Queen Mary’s Hall, chapel, swimming pool, bedrooms and dining room, then held our Christmas lunch in the library, complete with crackers. It was a day much enjoyed by all and – the true sign of a good meal with festive companions – when the end of the lunch came, no-one left the table for over half an hour but continued their various conversations.

PW