BARRY LEIGHTON visits the birthplace of Lords... and stays there

VISITORS tend to be bowled over upon entering The Dorset Hotel for the first time… you can’t help being knocked for six by the cricketing themed décor.

The interior designers behind this elegant, Central London boutique hotel have had a field day kitting it out.

All manner of equipment from the “gentleman’s game” – bats, balls, wickets, gloves, and some eye-catching traditional cricket gear – have been artistically assembled and attached to many of the walls.

The clusters of antique bats are especially intriguing. It is almost as though a new art form has been invented.

I must confess I was a bit stumped by it all at first. But a quick walk around the leafy, green lung that helps create a fine setting for the hotel and neighbouring Dorset Square buildings soon put me right.

A commemorative plaque, which I later discovered was unveiled in 2006 by England skipper at the time, Andrew Strauss, reads: “Thomas Lord laid out his original cricket ground on this site in 1787. The MCC was founded here in the same year.”

That’s right, we are at very home of cricket – the original Lords. I should have guessed really, Marylebone station of Marylebone Cricket Club fame, being just down the road.

The cricket pitch is long gone, having in 1814 found a permanent home on an old duck pond in St John’s Wood, which is pretty much around the time when Dorset Square – nothing more than fields in Lord’s day – was designed.

Sitting in the heart of one of Westminster’s 55 Conservation Areas, today Dorset Square, with its smart and fashionable three and four storey terraced houses, oozes Georgian charm and grandeur.

It may be in the middle of one of the world’s busiest cities but with its delightful tree filled garden-cum-park taking centre stage, the area has the feel of an oasis of calm. We are ridiculously close to the hubbub and fumes of traffic clogged London but it doesn’t feel like it.

Our journey from Swindon to Dorset Square was a 90- minute easy ride. Surely no-one actually drives to London these days, not unless you thrive on the endless frustration of one-way streets, elicit some sort of joy at being honked at by irate cabbies, or relish the prospect of taking out a mortgage to pay for a day’s parking… if you can find a space, that is.

An hour on the train to Paddington and then a couple of swift Underground stops including one line change and we were there. You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to find the four-star Dorset Square Hotel. The nearest Tube station is Baker Street, a two-minute walk away.

Location-wise, we are in the north westerly section of the West End. Regent’s Park is a leisurely stroll away while there are no shortage of shops, bars and restaurants in the immediate environs.

Once a pair of four-storey town houses for well-to-do Regency era families, the 38-room hotel – one of the enclave’s cornerstone structures – has been superbly transformed and converted.

It is reassuring to note – but no surprise after staying there one night last month – that the owners, Tim and Kit Kemp, are recipients of the MBE for services to the hospitality industry.

“Hotels should be living things not stuffy institutions” maintain the pair, who have amassed a string of industry awards over the years. They have created several hotels from similar lofty, terraced structures in the capital but this was their first – their baby.

The rooms are tasteful, comfy and well equipped with just about everything required, as you would expect. I particularly liked The Potting Shed – the establishment’s basement restaurant-cum-breakfast room.

Crammed with intriguing cricket memorabilia it was once, presumably, the servants’ quarters, as in Upstairs Downstairs.

Nowadays it offers English brasserie-style cuisine while throughout the day becomes an airy retreat in which patrons – both hotel guests and anyone who fancies popping in – can relax and enjoy a morning coffee, an afternoon cuppa, a G&T or a cocktail… while watching with some strange fascination the feet of pedestrians hurry by through the conservatory-style upper windows.

The Dorset Square Hotel, 39-40 Dorset Square, London NW1 6QN. Telephone: 020 7723 7874. E: dorset@firmdale.com Rooms are from £165 per night.

Barry and Pauline Leighton travelled to London with First Great Western.

Advance single fares from Swindon to London are available from £11.60 each way. For the best value tickets and offers, buy before you board at www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk, download the free mobile app or telephone 03457 000125.