Spitalfields, where old and new London meet, is a contradiction of street lamps and cobbled lanes existing in defiance of the city’s ever-expanding, skyscraper-filled skyline. In the heart of this lively and vibrant part of East London, simultaneously grand and unstuffy, is Batty Langley’s. The hotel is a warren of intimate communal areas and large, opulent bedrooms, where antiques and handsome oil paintings lend a lavish air. Batty himself (1696–1751) published handbooks designed to help inexperienced clients plan their Georgian houses and gardens “in the most Grand Taste”.