The Marble Arch hotel where Jimi Hendrix gave his last interview.
For shoppers it is the big hotel at the top of Oxford Street; for visitors it is a handy base next to Hyde Park. Few of the people hurrying past The Cumberland realise that it once claimed to be the largest hotel in Europe — or that one of the greatest guitarists who ever lived gave his last interview inside.
The site had long been a place for travellers: from at least the late 18th century an inn called the General Wolfe stood here, later the Hyde Park Hotel and then the Marble Arch Hotel. In 1930 work began on something far bigger, built by J. Lyons — the tea-room company behind the Strand Palace — to designs by architect F. J. Wills, who had also designed the Strand Palace and Regent Palace hotels.
It took more than three years to build, on a steel frame with eight storeys above ground and another seven below. When it opened on 12 December 1933, with around 1,000 rooms — and a thousand bathrooms, all lined with tiles from Jackfield in Shropshire — it claimed to be the largest hotel in Europe and “the most modern and elaborate in the world”. The day before, King George V and Queen Mary were given a private one-hour tour.
The newspapers of December 1933 loved the numbers: £40,000 of new Yorkshire carpets, 45 tons of Sheffield cutlery, more than 900 box-spring mattresses and 3,000 down pillows. Around 2,000 staff looked after the guests, and its lift was described as the first of its kind to travel at 500 feet a minute. More than a thousand people had lunch there on the first day, while the Great Depression meant a rush for every job.
The hotel’s souvenir history even noted, with Victorian gloom, that its windows would once have overlooked the executions at the old Tyburn gallows, which stood nearby.
In 1940 the artist Paul Nash stayed here and painted watercolours. During the war, Tyler Kent — a US Embassy clerk stealing secret papers — used the hotel to meet an agent of German intelligence. Alma Cogan was the resident singer for two years and was talent-spotted at the hotel in 1949.
Above all, The Cumberland became a home for musicians. Jimi Hendrix kept a regular room here, and on 11 September 1970 he gave his last interview in his suite — a week before his death. The hotel later turned that room into the Jimi Hendrix Suite. The Supremes rehearsed new choreography in the basement.
Recently given a bold new look, the hotel still takes up a whole city block between Great Cumberland Place and Oxford Street. Hyde Park and Speakers’ Corner are across the road, Selfridges and the shops of Oxford Street on the doorstep. And one detail never changed: the entrance to Marble Arch tube station sits inside the hotel’s Oxford Street frontage — the station was there first.
Heathrow is about 40–60 minutes by car, Gatwick about 70–90 minutes. The train is fine if you travel light — but with luggage, children, a late flight or an arrival at Gatwick or London City, most guests prefer a private transfer straight to the door.
See your fixed price at the top of this page, or open the Heathrow to The Cumberland and Gatwick to The Cumberland pages.
Almost a century after London first marvelled at its floodlights, The Cumberland is still one of the city’s great meeting points — a little less royal, a lot more rock and roll.
Sources: Wikipedia · Londonist — Hendrix Suite · The Spectator
One fixed price for the car to The Cumberland, driver waiting inside arrivals with your name, flight tracked. Heathrow is about 40–60 minutes by car, Gatwick about 70–90 minutes.
Get my fixed price ↑Facts checked against the sources listed above, November 2026.
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