8 Northumberland Avenue

Event SpaceUp to 1,000 guests

/ About

8 Northumberland Avenue occupies the former Hotel Victoria, built in 1887 a minute from Trafalgar Square and named for the Queen's Golden Jubilee. It held 500 bedrooms and was among the largest hotels of its type in London. By 1939 the Ministry of War had taken the building over and the state rooms spent seven decades closed to the public, the Ballroom partitioned into lecture theatres and the restaurant turned into a computer room. Charles Boyd and Adrian Brain reclaimed it for events in 2009, and the doors reopened to the public in the spring of 2010.

Two rooms carry the building, and they are near enough the same size. The Ballroom runs 31 metres under a gilded coffered ceiling, with Corinthian columns, wrought-iron chandeliers and stained glass; it takes 700 for a reception and 450 at dinner. The Old Billiard Room is its opposite: white, columned, deliberately plain, a blank canvas for 500. The Annex adjoins it. Taken together the building hires for up to 1,000, and the two principal rooms sit across two connected levels, which is why they tend to be used in sequence rather than chosen between.

Production and catering are run in-house. The venue publishes high-fidelity sound systems, advanced lighting controls and projection screens, with an AV team based in the building, and the Ballroom's lighting rig washes the room in colour. Sound is regulated. The venue sits inside Westminster's noise-controlled core and there are bedrooms above the Ballroom, so amplified music carries a different finish time in each room, and the restrictions are written into the contract. The Old Billiard Room is the room that runs latest.

/ Rooms Available

Whole Venue

Exclusive Hire

Up to 1,000

Both principal rooms and the Annex taken exclusively, for up to 1,000. The Ballroom and the Old Billiard Room are near enough equal in size and sit on the same level, so a night can run through the building rather than stay in one room: dinner in one, dancing in the other.

Period Architecture Flexible Layout Sound System Lighting Rig Private Bar

The Ballroom

Private

Seats 450 / Up to 700

The room the Hotel Victoria was built around, and the one the building is known for. It runs 31 metres under a gilded coffered ceiling, with Corinthian columns, wrought-iron chandeliers and stained glass, and the house lighting rig washes the whole room in colour. It takes 700 standing and 450 at dinner, and it is laid out for dinner and dancing at 400.

Period Architecture Sound System Lighting Rig Dance Floor Private Bar

The Old Billiard Room

Private

Seats 270 / Up to 500

White, columned and unornamented, the counterweight to the Ballroom and close to it in size. LED coving runs the length of the ceiling and the room is treated as a blank canvas: it has carried exhibitions, gala dinners and receptions, and takes 500 standing. Of the two principal rooms it is the one that runs latest, and it adjoins the Annex.

Flexible Layout Sound System Lighting Rig Dance Floor Private Bar

The Annex

Private

Seats 140 / Up to 200

Adjoining the Old Billiard Room, a smaller columned space with the same plaster panelling and coffered ceiling. It serves as a breakout room, a registration space or a reception in its own right, and takes 200.

Flexible Layout Period Architecture