Two hotels once stood on Derby Road, and played roles in some unusual Nottingham history – one facilitated a dramatic confrontation featuring local suffragettes, the other housed a ‘mini Scotland’. Here’s the hidden history in those now-innocuous locations.
For many years, Derby Road has been a lively drinking trail into the city centre, and today it’s still home to many pubs and shops. It was, however, once known for its hotels, two of the best-known being the Albert and the Strathdon. Often confused with each other, there is a common misconception that the Albert Hotel previously stood on the site where the Strathdon Hotel is today, when in fact one opened as the other shut.
The Albert
It’s unclear when the Albert Hotel actually opened, but Brewster sessions (annual meetings to arrange licensing) held in1886, hint that it was around that time. Mr Howitt – landlord at the Albert Hotel – objected to a license being sought for a ‘house’ known as the Old Three Horse Shoes. Although it had operated as a coffee shop for some time, the house wanted a full licence to sell more than beer and caffeine, which would place pressure on Howitt’s hotel. He highlighted that when he bought the vacant lot from the corporation, he had been assured there would be no other beer houses for 99 years in the vicinity. This had successfully seen the end of two – the Leopard and the Struggler.
There were, by 1886, at least ten, which must have meant competition was intense. Howitt had spent £7,000 on a hotel, possibly linked to his arrest in 1891 for illicit after-hours drinking and gambling in the bar. He was caught when a policeman looked in the window and saw a group of men playing cards. Although they argued that they had been discussing a famous London case, before one of them offered to show how to play the game of baccarat, the judge was not convinced. Howitt was fined £10 and his license was endorsed.
The hotel was in a convenient location for music halls and theatres – especially the Albert Hall, where many performances were held. This is possibly why it was used as a safe space for suffragette Miss Annie Kenney, when a rally she was holding at the hall on Circus Street faced a riot. A crowd of men and youths stormed in through the back entrance, letting off fireworks and revolvers while hurling abuse and missiles at the women, who bravely held their ground.
Local organiser, Miss Marsh, said the women had escaped through the back entrance to the Albert Hotel, where they waited for a policeman to call them a taxi. Although this proved almost impossible due to the angry crowds.
The hotel was a growing business, which recorded just four members of staff living on the premises in 1921. By 1939, this had almost doubled to include maids, housekeepers, cooks and bartenders.
A decision was made to demolish the Albert Hotel in the late 1960s amid a time of great change in Nottingham. In keeping with the ideas at the time including ‘all in the name of progress’, and modernity, it became the site of IBM offices by the end of summer 1970.
Before it was demolished, emotional locals turned up to the auctions to save treasures from the hotel, including its baby piano. One woman, a former member of staff, sentimentally bought the old typewriter she had typed all the correspondence on for 25 years.
The extensive design leaned heavily into a Scottish theme, creating a shooting lodge-inspired bar that had rustic logs on the walls and ceiling and a giant mural of a stag in the glens
The Strathdon
The Strathdon Hotel still stands today. A more non-descript and modernist facade than the Albert, it has admittedly seen better days. It was opened in 1970 under Thistle Hotels, a subsidiary of Scottish and Newcastle Brewery, by a very special guest – Miss Dorothy Adams, a 67-year-old spinster who had worked at the Albert Hotel for 57 years, but hadn’t missed so much as a day of work since she joined in 1918. She was invited by the manager, Alastair Appleton, to open the Strathdon.
The brewery transformed this corner of Derby Road into a mini Scotland, with renovations totalling £400,000 across eight stories, one restaurant, function rooms, four bars, and 64 bedrooms. The extensive design leaned heavily into a Scottish theme, creating a shooting lodge-inspired bar that had rustic logs on the walls and ceiling and a giant mural of a stag in the glens. The downstairs bar was turned into a cottage for the occasion with bullseye windows and a thatched roof.
Finally, a Scottish-themed menu of toasted cheese sandwiches was added, including a ‘Strathdon Sassenach’ , a haggis and cheese toastie. The Scottish theme was gone by 1986, in favour of ‘real American Kitsch’ as the bar facing Wollaton Street became a Boston Bean Company American bar, complete with New Orleans-style jazz Sundays. This appears to have been a chain of American-style hotel restaurants with branches in Newcastle and Edinburgh, serving Boston clam chowder and New England pate. It had a series of themed bars, including Captain’s Locker, but its last name was Bar 44, which can still be seen on the side of the building today.
The hotel was popular for weddings and conferences, but by the late 1990s, it was showing signs of slowing down. It was reported that Thistle sold a third of its underperforming hotels, including the Strathdon, to Pamco, a subsidiary of the Lehman Brothers, to be managed by former Thistle Chief Executive Robert Peel under Peel Hotels.
It’s unclear when it officially closed, but it appears to have been in 2020, as it was listed as empty by 2021. It suffered extensive damage when a fire broke out in a stairwell in August 2021 and remains closed in 2026. Sadly, both hotels join a long list, including the Black Boy Hotel on Long Row, which have closed, but not been forgotten.
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