Great Hotels Through Time | Preview (5)

The Ritz Hotel in London – it's so famous that ‘ritzy’ even made its way into the dictionary. And at just a short stroll from Buckingham Palace, it’s been a handy second home for royals down the decades, including King Charles who, as a young royal, could be regularly found partying there.

It has a reputation for nothing being too much trouble – the early ensuites in the 1900s even had two special pull chains next to the bath; one to call a maid and the other a valet to scrub those hard-to-reach areas! These days, a single night in one of its palatial suites can cost twelve thousand pounds.

This programme uncovers the history and the secrets of a hotel that’s been ‘putting on The Ritz’ for nearly 120 years. The grand building first flung open its gilded doors to the super-rich in 1906. The brainchild of famous Swiss hotelier Cesar Ritz, it was the height of over-the-top luxury and featured today’s equivalent of 6.5 million pounds-worth of gold leaf covering almost every surface.

But during its first opening week there was a whiff of a problem! The fancy new ensuite toilets didn’t have a proper flush, leading to unpleasant smells and all-round panic... not something that put Paul McCartney off decades later when he and Linda celebrated their marriage there.

Over more than a century, the hotel’s hardworking staff ensured that everyone from The Rolling Stones to Queen Elizabeth received five-star service. In fact, the then Princess Elizabeth was spotted doing a conga in the entrance hall, celebrating the end of the Second World War. And in 1999 the then Prince Charles chose the hotel to officially reveal his relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles to the world’s press.

Great Hotels Through Time begins Saturday 9th August on 5.