cool places to stay in Nostalgic London

Fancy spending a night snoozing inside a former prison cell? Formerly Clerkenwell Magistrates Court, this Victorian building is now a backpackers’ hostel. Beds are available in the old cells, complete with original bunks, high windows and a heavy metal door (relax – you can open it from the inside). You can also hang out in the former courtroom or party in the basement bar, named ClashBar after the punk band that once went on trial here.

Bed down for the night on one of Spitalfields’ most well-preserved historic streets. Like nearby Fournier Street, Princelet Street sprung up in the early 1700s and was populated with Huguenot silk weavers. This tall, elegant and carefully restored home is now owned by the Landmark Trust. Rent its four floors and peaceful walled garden for a taste of what life would have been like here centuries ago.

This concrete construction near Russell Square, made up of flats, shops and a Curzon cinema, is Grade II-listed and one of the best examples of brutalist architecture in the capital. Designed in the late 1960s, the low-rise, stepped flats all feature partly glazed roofs, filling them with natural light. Stay in this two-bedroom apartment to admire the pioneering urban environment that opens out beneath the balcony.

Stay inside Hampton Court Palace’s grounds at The Georgian House and you’ll have free rein to wander through the gardens and courtyards after the rest of the visitors have gone home. The elegant house was actually built as a great kitchen while George I was on the throne in 1719. It later became two houses, for the Clerk of Works and the Gardener, and you can now rent one of them to live out any daydreams you have about royal court life.

While you can’t access 41 Cloth Fair, the oldest house in the City of London and the only to survive the Great Fire of London, you can have a nosey around inside the neighbouring properties. Both 43 and 45a are owned by the Landmark Trust, and are available for overnight stays. They don’t look quite as old as 41 – both have 18th-century, Georgian façades – but their timber frames date from around 1600. The first and second floor of 43 also used to be the home of Poet Laureate Sir John Betjeman. The building is almost exactly as it was when he lived here, including his choice of William Morris wallpaper in the living room.