A slice of literary history in lively Soho, this former home of English essayist William Hazlitt creaks with authenticity.

Powder your wig and imagine you're arriving by sedan chair at this singular hotel, occupying a Georgian terrace and presented as a piece of living history.

Housed in a converted Victorian warehouse, this design-conscious boutique hotel is a perfect fit for east London's creative hub.

‘We've been raving about it to everyone!’ enthuses a recent guest of this zany boutique hotel on Clerkenwell’s St John’s Square.

Amid the historic streets and squares of Pimlico, a 19th-century pub has been reinvented as a funky hotel, with café and cocktail bar.

Mark Sainsbury and Michael Benyan's second Zetter town house hotel is every bit as eccentric as the first, the design conceit here being that it was once the home of ‘wicked Uncle Seymour’ (the inspiration for Seymour being Edward Lear, former incumbent and real-life eccentric).

Visitors can live like a local at this eclectic Victorian house close to Portobello Road, in chic, characterful Notting Hill.

Novelists, politicians, silk merchants as well as the petty thieves, tarts and vagabonds of the area are commemorated in this eccentric hotel in gentrified Spitalfields.

In a former grammar school for boys near Tower Bridge, Victorian grandeur has been overlaid with Indian opulence to make a classy hotel.

‘On arrival we discovered that our package included afternoon tea, which we enjoyed before a concert at Cadogan Hall.’

‘I have stayed at this lovely hotel for many years, and it still pleases in every respect,’ writes a reader in 2019, of this cherished London institution, contrived from four knocked-through Georgian town houses.

The show-stopper at this small hotel is Sharon Marston’s April Light, an 18-metre cascade of polished steel, polymer and glass fibre optics, which hangs in the central stairwell, scattering colours and light.

It’s not alone in claiming to be ‘London’s first boutique hotel’, but the ‘charming, quirky’ Portobello is assuredly one of its most extraordinary.

‘No bland corporate anonymity here.’ Beyond the portico of a white stucco Victorian mansion lies a truly boutique hotel, part of Kit and Tim Kemp’s Firmdale group.

Osbert Lancaster dubbed the style ‘Pont Street Dutch’, but behind the gabled red brick facade of twin Victorian mansions, you are in Italy.

A busy, multi-tasking pub, 'school-run coffees in the morning, great food and pub atmosphere at night'.

Across from the pocket park of Orange Square, with its statue of a young Mozart, this ‘upmarket pub/café/restaurant’ is a sister to the Grazing Goat (see entry).

In ‘a great location’ in vibrant ‘Portman Village’, tucked away behind Oxford Street, this ‘all-day café/bar/restaurant-with-rooms’ has a relaxed vibe.

‘Simple, ideally located and representing good value’, this small hotel with a pretty, plant-decked Georgian exterior is ‘remarkably quiet’ considering its prime position in bustling Covent Garden.

All is serene at this handsome 1860s town house hotel (Firmdale group) just minutes from Hyde Park.

A calm oasis in buzzy surroundings, Kit Kemp’s signature modern English style surges through this swanky West End hotel.

Discreetly tucked away from the hustle and bustle of the West End, a calm town house hotel with an intriguing history.

Just north of Soho and the West End theatres, the zesty embrace of art and colour confirms this hotel as one in Tim and Kit Kemp’s Firmdale group.

Sculptor Fernando Botero’s ten-foot-high bronze cat cheekily pokes its tongue out at guests in the lobby of this creatively designed hotel.