The best hotels in Bermondsey

Opened in early 2017, Lalit is the Indian hotel giant’s foray into the London luxury hotel scene. The Grade II-listed building that used to be St Olave’s Grammar School has seen its stately assembly hall and classrooms undergo a transformation into a 70-room hotel with just enough of the original features to nod to old-school ‘quintessential Englishness’, overlaid with dramatic Indian art and textiles and lashings of five-star luxury in terms of tech and amenities.

Sitting pretty in the heart of hip at the right end of Bermondsey Street (for art galleries, the antiques market and boho restaurants), 90-room Bermondsey Square’s boutique credentials include big rooms with neatly designed workspaces and spacious bathrooms with powerful showers and trendy toiletries. Best for views are the coveted loft suites. It’s quirky: a pet-, yoga-, jazz dance-friendly, dry hotel – no alcohol – but there are excellent drinking options in the area.

This affordable chain hotel has outposts in every sightseeing location in the city. There are three of them in this vicinity, so visitors bound for the Tower of London, HMS Belfast, the city bridges, Tate Modern and St Paul’s and Southwark cathedrals can make a Premier their base, and fuel up on the buffet breakfast before attending to their landmark tick-list. The rooms are spacious and well tended, with Hypnos beds and decent showers; a win–win, budget wise.

A swish modern Hilton, where everything feels crisp and new after a recent refurb updated many of the executive rooms. It’s on ever-changing Tooley Street, just a short walk away from both London and Tower bridges. Hiltons have a popular loyalty scheme – worth taking advantage of to upgrade from (already quite comfortable) standard rooms to ones on higher floors, which give you more treats (wine, fluffy bathrobes, newspapers, breakfast). There’s a Jamie’s Italian restaurant on the ground floor.

A collection of small, neat open-plan studio apartments, each with a bedroom (queen-sized bed), shower room and kitchenette (combi microwave only for cooking) with fridge freezer and dishwasher. The location on busy Tower Bridge Road, next to a pocket-sized park, is convenient for sightseeing. The studios have floor-to-ceiling windows, so are nice and light, and easy-clean floors and surfaces. Fine, and perfectly comfortable as a sightseeing base, they’re good value.