Grand Hotel

A photograph of the Grand Hotel in Birmingham, c.1895, Warwickshire Photographic Survey [Ref. WK B11/5625]

Overlooking St. Philip’s Church, the refurbished Grand Hotel on Colmore Row reopened in May 2021 having been closed since 2002.  

Map of St Philip’s Square and Colmore Row, showing the Grand Hotel at the top on the left, 1889 [Ref. Warwickshire XIV.5.7]

Starting construction in 1876, the original architect was Thomson Plevins who also designed several buildings on Colmore Row, along with the Midland Hotel (now called The Burlington Hotel) on New Street.  

Advertisement for the opening of the Grand Hotel, Birmingham Post, 1 February 1879

The Birmingham Post ran the above advertisement for the Grand Hotel’s original opening in early February 1879. It seems a simple notice, especially in contrast to the investment that had been made in the hotel’s opulent architecture and décor, and yet there is something in how the advertisement stands out in the layout of the page as surely as the owners and proprietor of this new hotel hoped it would from its competitors.  

Extract from the 1881 Census for the Grand Hotel

This 1881 Census page records the people in the hotel on the night of the census. As a snapshot, it demonstrates the number of staff the hotel employed to run the building, including an Amy Hill – a maid just for vegetables! 

Souvenir guide for the the Grand Hotel, 1891 [Ref. Birmingham Institutions C/2 239651]

This souvenir guide, dating from an 1891 refurbishment, boasts of the hotel’s press notices, quoting: ‘The best Hotel in Birmingham’, and ‘The best Hotel outside London’, as well as ‘Ranking amongst the best Hotels in the country’. The companies involved in this 1891 refurbishment are named – some being locally very well-known, such as the architects Martin and Chamberlain, and the silver company Elkingtons, who provided the plates and cutlery. 

Grovesnor Room ceiling [cropped from a larger photograph in MS 2917 box 1 of 2]

The main function room in the Grand Hotel was, and is, the Grosvenor Room, seen furnished here roughly at the turn of the 19^th Century with its beautiful chandeliers. From the dinner cards we hold, the Grosvenor Room held many large events over the years. You can search for these on our online catalogue.

Our news cuttings collection on ‘hotels’ details that the recent closure was not the first extended one in the hotel’s history as it was closed and then reopened after a 7-year break in the 1970s.  

Looking at the Grand Hotel’s website, it is again as glamourous as it was. Let us hope the 2021 reopening will preserve the beautiful grade II* listed building for another century and a half at least. 

Rachel Clare, Archives & Collections Assistant