Luxury Hotels Atlas / Places / United Kingdom / London / The Lalit London
The Lalit London
London, United Kingdom · The Lalit · Near Luxury
The Old Bailey's architect, Edward Mountford, designed this red-brick school, and in 2017 The Lalit turned it into a hotel at 181 Tooley Street. St Olave's had taught boys on the ground for centuries before the 1890s building went up. You sleep in rooms the hotel still calls classrooms, dine in the Great Hall, now Baluchi, under a vaulted blue ceiling, and walk out to Tower Bridge or Borough Market.
- 70 rooms
- Opened 2017
- Neighborhood: Tower Bridge
- Rooms from 172 sq ft (16 m²)
- Architect: Edward Mountford (1890s school); EPR Architects (2017 hotel conversion)
- Interiors: Archer Humphryes
About The Lalit London
- The school on this ground goes back to 1561, founded by the brewer Henry Leeke. Mountford's clock-tower building is the 1890s replacement. The school left for Orpington in the late 1960s.
- Smith of Derby, the firm that made the original school clock and bell, came back to restore the clock. A new Westmorland slate roof went on in the same works.
- Archaeologists spent 14 weeks in the ground and found the paths and footings of 18th-century houses that once lined Tooley Street, cleared so the school could be built.
- None of the 70 rooms matches another. The conversion cost about £30 million, and the smallest rooms are still called Cosy Classrooms.
- Entry-level rooms start at 172 sq ft (16 m²).
History
St Olave's Grammar School, founded in 1561 by brewer Henry Leeke, occupied this site until it moved to Orpington in the late 1960s. Edward Mountford, architect of the Old Bailey, designed the red-brick building in the 1890s. It is Grade II. The Lalit opened a 70-room hotel here in 2017 after about £30 million of work by EPR Architects, with interiors by Archer Humphryes. The Great Hall is Baluchi. Smith of Derby restored the school clock.
The setting
181 Tooley Street, SE1 2JR, on the south bank between London Bridge and Tower Bridge, near Borough Market and HMS Belfast.
Awards
- Forbes Travel Guide Recommended (2026)
Open The Lalit London in the atlas for live weekend rates, photos, and the full folio.
More hotels in London
- Boundary Shoreditch — Independent · Near Luxury
- citizenM London Bankside — citizenM · Near Luxury
- citizenM London Shoreditch — citizenM · Near Luxury
- citizenM London Victoria Station — citizenM · Near Luxury
- citizenM Tower of London — citizenM · Near Luxury
- Hilton London Paddington — Hilton Hotels & Resorts · Near Luxury