Conclusive information about this venue has not been located. It is possible, however, that it is the London Bridge Hotel described by John Timbs in Curiosities of London (1868). Timbs' comments on this space are summarized below.
Address: Southwark. Timbs suggests that the building “exactly adjoins time terminus on the side of the Brighton and South Coast Railway” (442).
Audience Composition: According to Timbs, the smaller of two coffee-rooms in the hotel was “for the use of ladies only” (ibid). Audiences for performances in this particular space would thus likely be restricted accordingly.
Performance Space Description: Timbs describes the hotel in rather glowing terms, calling it “inferior only to the Grosvenor in size and external appearance” (ibid). He continues: “There is an exceedingly magnificent coffee-room, with a smaller one, decorated in the same style [...]. There are spacious bed and dressing-rooms, with suites of apartments for families; reading, billiard, and smoking rooms. This is the only Hotel of the new class which has a billiard-room. Like the other Hotels, the London Bridge is fire-proof, and is further provided with a powerful water supply, and fire-mains, with hoses, on each floor. An air-shaft passing up the building gives the most perfect ventilation to every floor, of which there are seven. The exterior has a heavy cornice, and terminates in a Mansard roof” (ibid).
On the Road Again
