D'Oyly, Ritz and Escoffier... what more needs to be said?

When a maharajah staying at The Savoy in London wanted a very important parcel delivered to India he arranged for one of the page boys to fly there and back at his expense. No-one, least of all the management at The Savoy blinked an eye-lid. After all, this was the hotel which at the time of its opening in 1889 boasted the only electric lights and the first 24 hour room service of any hotel in the world. Where other five-star hotels had prided themselves on providing the then staggering number of five fully appointed bathrooms for their guests, The Savoy had sixty-seven.

Even before the brilliant impressario Richard D'Oyly Carte built his hotel, the very site on which The Savoy stands was an address of note. During the Battle of Poitiers in 1356 for instance, the King of France was imprisoned there in the then Palace of Savoy, built earlier that century by Count Peter of Savoy after he was leased the land by his sister's husband. King Henry III. For the sum of three barbed arrows a year, Count Peter had for his personal use some of the most valuable land in London between the city and the West End, on one of the most scenic bends of the River Thames.

The first building in London to be made entirely of concrete and steel. The Savoy was built on a site rich in the very fabric of London, and British life. Not surprising then that it should have been conceived and brought to fruition by the man responsible for bringing Gilbert and Sullivan, undoubtedly England's most widely acclaimed composers to world prominence. It was in the Savoy Chapel too that Geoffrey Chaucer, the great English literary figure had chosen to marry.