Montague Street is a terrace of yellow stock brick, put up around 1803 to 1806 to designs by James Burton, with stucco ground floors, cast-iron balconies at the first floor and area railings finished with urns. When Sherlock Holmes first came up to London he took rooms here, just round the corner from the British Museum, and filled his spare hours with the sciences that might make him more useful. It remains a good street for an inquiring mind.
Six of those houses, Nos 2 to 7, are now The Zetter Bloomsbury, which opened in April 2026. The group has been making relaxed, residential hotels since its first opened in Clerkenwell in 2004. In Bloomsbury it has joined six interconnecting Georgian houses into one, and the garden behind them backs onto the British Museum. That turns out to matter.
The design
The interiors are by James Thurstan Waterworth, formerly of Martin Brudnizki's studio and Soho House. The result is Victorian elegance seen through a Georgian lens. European antiques sit beside mid-century furniture and African textiles, Turkish rugs have been remade as ottomans, more than 500 cushions are cut from antique fabric, architraves are hand-painted to look like marble, and Georgian cabinets conceal the hotel's modern services.
The art is the clever part. St Ives painters such as Sandra Blow and Roger Hilton hang among ancient Egyptian artefacts and objects from across continents, and a library of more than 600 vintage art and auction catalogues carries the conversation with the museum over the garden wall.
A hotel that would rather feel like a house, on the street where Sherlock Holmes first lodged.
The garden
Behind the houses lies the garden, by the Rich Brothers, Harry and David, who won gold at Chelsea in 2015. They have laid out a secret garden of around 1,000 square metres in four parts, one of the largest private hotel gardens in London. In a neighbourhood of squares, a garden of one's own is a real advantage. There is a yoga deck, and an outdoor terrace and barbecue hosts seasonal residencies.
The rooms
The rooms keep the character of the houses they occupy, from the compact Cosy Rooms upwards. The Junior Suites look over the garden, with lofty ceilings and four-poster beds. The one to book for an occasion is the Terrace Suite, with a claw-foot bath set beneath the bay window and a wraparound terrace above the garden. Bathrooms are marble, stocked with Verden products.
Drinks and dinner
There is no formal restaurant, and the hotel is better for it. Check-in happens over a glass of wine or a coffee, and every guest is handed a coin to exchange for a drink, anything from a coffee to a serious spirit. The Parlour, with its own courtyard garden, serves British classics such as Scotch eggs and sausage rolls alongside salads and larger plates. The Orangery, glass-roofed and full of plants, does breakfast and an afternoon tea by the group executive head chef Debjit Dass, whose coronation chicken sandwich is made with his mother's curried mayonnaise.
