If you want to get away from the Strand, Regent street and Piccadilly; if you are tired of the glare and blare of showy “American hotels,” and you prefer a very quiet, but healthy locality, jot down in your memorandum book, “Norfolk Hotel, Harrington Road, South Kensington, S.W.” The Norfolk was built in the year 1889, not by a company, but by Mr. A. Fatman, who himself keeps the house. It is not large, there is room only for eighty guests, but these eighty can be made very comfortable.
It is not like a hotel in certain respects. The rooms are not all of one size nor of one shape. The furniture does not look as if it were turned out by machinery in Grand Rapids and bought by the car-load. It has character and distinction, no suites of furniture being alike. There is nothing at the Norfolk to remind you, for instance, of a Salt Lake hotel, with its great halls and corridors, and its cold, bare walls. Good taste, as well as money, was used in building and furnishing the Norfolk, and the result is an attractive, cosy, home-like house.
After entering the Norfolk and admiring its pleasant surroundings, the tariff of charges will surprise you. Rooms are let as low as two-and-six (about sixty cents) a night, and, wonderful to relate for a London hotel, there is no charge for attendance. Fish breakfast, one-and-six (thirty-five cents); afternoon tea, sixpence; the same price for hot or cold bath.
THE FIRST AVENUE.
Don’t be prejudiced at the sound of “First Avenue Hotel.” It is in Holborn, a bustling, busy thoroughfare, but which has nothing in common with our First avenue in New York. The Gordon’s Hotel Company made a mistake in naming the house; they meant to say Fifth Avenue Hotel, for the First Avenue Hotel ranks probably with our Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York, only the First Avenue is not an old house. Holborn is one of London’s main arteries, a continuation, east, of Oxford street. The First Avenue is not very far from St. Paul’s and Newgate. The former being a noble cathedral, you will wish to get into; the latter being a prison, you will wish to keep out of, unless for a temporary visit.