Old Bank Hotel

About Old Bank Hotel

The Old Bank occupies exactly what its name suggests: a Georgian building on the High Street that traded as a bank until the 1990s, on a site that has been in use since the fifteenth century. The conversion kept the scale and the stonework and threw out the rest, so the interior is emphatically contemporary - pale walls, big windows and a collection of modern British art, several hundred works of it, hung throughout the public rooms and bedrooms rather than shut away.

There are 43 rooms and suites. The ones at the front look straight across to All Souls, the University Church and the Radcliffe Camera, which is as good a view as any hotel in Oxford can offer and worth the upgrade if you can get one; rooms at the back are quieter and overlook the walled garden and the terrace. Bathrooms are marble, beds are large, and the fit-out is consistent rather than eccentric, which is unusual in a city where period hotels often mean unpredictable rooms.

Quod, the ground-floor brasserie, keeps the old banking hall's proportions and is busy from breakfast onwards with a mix of guests, academics and locals; there is a courtyard terrace behind it for warmer months. The hotel is part of a small independent group with the Old Parsonage a few minutes away, and guests can use bicycles and the group's restaurants. The location is the real luxury here - the Bodleian, Christ Church, the Covered Market and the Botanic Garden are all within a five-minute walk, and there is limited private parking, which in this part of Oxford is close to priceless.