--- title: "Hyde London City (the Old Bailey Hotel) | Mr Wallcover" url: https://www.mrwallcover.com/projects/old-bailey-hotel/ description: "Full decorating package: decoration, specialist wallcoverings and window film at Hyde London City (the Old Bailey Hotel), c. 2 years. A complete…" author: "Dorin Burcus" last_updated: 2026-10-09 --- 15 Old Bailey, City of London EC4M 7EF # Hyde London City (the Old Bailey Hotel) A complete decorating package for 110 rooms: paint, specialist wallcoverings and window film, delivered over about two years inside a Grade II-listed Victorian hotel opposite the Central Criminal Court. **As featured by Timorous Beasties:** [Studio Moren x Timorous Beasties at Hyde London City](https://www.timorousbeasties.com/story/studio-moren-x-timorous-beasties-at-hyde-london-city). Their story shows the two designs in the finished bedrooms. ## At a glance - **Building:** 15 Old Bailey, City of London. Grade II listed, completed 1874 - **Opened:** 2 September 2024 as Hyde London City - **Duration:** about two years on site (our photographs run from a sample room in November 2022 to final touches in August 2024) - **Rooms:** 110 - **Interior design:** Studio Moren - **Our package:** full decoration, specialist wallcoverings and window film - **Wallcoverings:** Timorous Beasties Tropical Clouded Leopard and Totem Damask (custom-printed vinyl), and House of Hackney LIMERENCE - **Window film:** Solar Screen ## The building Old Bailey takes its name from the line of the City’s ancient wall, its “bailey”, just beyond which the street runs. For centuries the name has meant justice: the old sessions house stood beside Newgate Prison, and both were swept away for E. W. Mountford’s Central Criminal Court, opened by King Edward VII in 1907. Number 15 is older than its famous neighbour. Completed in 1874 by Evans Cronk as the Spiers & Pond hotel, it is recorded as the first hotel in London to have electric lighting. It later spent decades as offices. In 2024, after a full restoration, it returned to its first purpose: on 2 September 2024 it opened as Hyde London City, an Ennismore hotel. It is a building of carved stone bays, arched and round oculus windows, a sweeping timber-railed staircase and rooftop views of St Paul’s. Every one of those features had to be decorated around, protected and finished to a standard that suits both a listed building and a design-led hotel. ## The design The interiors were designed by Studio Moren. For the bedrooms they selected two Timorous Beasties designs, produced as custom-printed vinyl wallpaper: Totem Damask in Black & Blue, and Tropical Clouded Leopard in Vanilla. Vinyl lets the patterns stand up to the daily wear of a busy hotel while keeping their colour and detail. Timorous Beasties describe the result as “bold pattern with atmosphere” ([Timorous Beasties](https://www.timorousbeasties.com/story/studio-moren-x-timorous-beasties-at-hyde-london-city)). ## The brief One team, one standard, from the first sample room to handover: the complete decorating package across 110 rooms and the circulation spaces, the specialist wallcoverings that give each room its character, and the window film to the glazing. ## Our approach **Sample room first.** Our record starts in November 2022 with a finished sample room: Timorous Beasties’ Tropical Clouded Leopard set behind the bed as a shaped headboard panel. Agreeing the finish, the setting out and the detailing in one room first meant that the next 109 could be repeated with confidence. **Preparation.** A building of this age moves and varies from room to room. New and old surfaces were filled, made good and primed so that the paint and wallcoverings sit on a sound, even base. Our photographs show walls taken back to a smooth finish before a single drop was hung. **Setting out large-scale pattern.** Tropical Clouded Leopard is a large-scale, quarter-drop design. Hung as a shaped panel behind each bed, its placement has to be judged room by room so the composition sits centrally and reads as intended. Totem Damask runs differently: a single ten-metre repeat with no horizontal match, so every drop has to be chosen by eye to keep a feature wall balanced. **The suite.** In the suite, House of Hackney’s LIMERENCE in the Galapagos colourway wraps the room in lush, painterly palms, including the bedroom and the dressing area. It is supplied as four 45 cm panels per roll, so the panels had to be hung in sequence and aligned precisely around joinery and windows. **Window film.** Alongside the decoration, we fitted [Solar Screen](https://solarscreen.eu/en/) window film to the glazing. See our [window film service](https://www.mrwallcover.com/services/window-film/). **Decoration throughout.** The decorating package ran through corridors, stair cores and rooms: deep greens and warm terracottas in the circulation spaces, crisp finishes to the panelling, and careful cutting-in around period mouldings, balustrades and the timber handrail of the main stair. ## Materials - Timorous Beasties – Tropical Clouded Leopard, Vanilla, custom-printed vinyl: guest-room headboard walls - Timorous Beasties – Totem Damask, Black & Blue, custom-printed vinyl: guest-room feature walls - House of Hackney – LIMERENCE, Galapagos: the suite - Solar Screen window film: glazing ## Outcome On 2 September 2024 the first hotel in London to be lit by electricity reopened as a hotel, 150 years after it was built. Guests walk into bedrooms dressed in Timorous Beasties’ leopards and kaleidoscopic damasks, a suite wrapped in House of Hackney palms, and corridors and stairs finished to match, all of it delivered by our team. ## Photographs By [Dorin Burcus](https://www.mrwallcover.com/about/#dorin), founder · Last updated 9 October 2026