Ecceleston Square Hotel. Hi-Tech Luxury Hotel In A Quiet Corner Of Of London.

Jon Holmes grapples with the technology in the Ecceleston Square Hotel, one of London’s smartest boutique hotels.

Is the Ecceleston Square Hotel going to be ‘tucked’ or ‘nestled’ into its surroundings, I wonder, as I wander around a curious corner into a square that’s surprisingly quiet despite it being just five minutes from Victoria Station in London. It has to be one or the other, I reason, given that the smart terraced rows, of which it is part, have been home to poets and politicians – a fact that the blue plaque proclaiming ‘Winston Churchill lived here’ is testament to.

A few more steps, and the traffic noise dies away, replaced with birdsong from the Square’s Grade II listed gardens to which, as an Ecceleston Square Hotel guest, I get a key. Moments later, the smart stucco of my destination is in front of me, and I decide on ‘nestled’.

There are many such cliches one could hurl at Eccleston Square Hotel, but they stop the moment you step inside. Everything is ultra-modern and smart – in the decorative sense as you’re greeted by clean lines of greys and whites in floors and fabrics, but also in the technological sense as everything has a touchscreen or panel to make it work.

Reception is small (but why do you need a big one?) in this 36 room boutique hotel and check-in is attentive, despite my attention being taken by the receptionist’s uniform, which studiously matches the décor. So far so star-rating, I think, as the lift pings to a halt on the 2nd floor in front of my room.

For me, entering a hotel room for the first time carries with it a frisson of anticipation; the sweep of the door across the carpet, the smell of this-room-is freshly-cleaned, the puzzle of where the hairdryer might be. Full disclosure, I do not have hair that warrants one, but I like its game of hairdryer-and-seek. Is it in a bag in the wardrobe? Or a bag in a drawer? Why is the hairdryer even in a bag in the first place? Is there an ironing board? Where does bathrobe fall on the fluffiness scale? And, crucially, how do the lights work?

Well initially, all the tech means its far from obvious. Curtains? It turns out that to open and close them you must wave at a panel that illuminates when your hand gets close. Then, after battling with the aircon, I gave up and, because I was also unable to fathom the phone, I padded to reception in my socks.

The receptionist could not have been more helpful, barely glancing at my lack of footwear as she accompanied me back to my room, waved at the panel until a small image of a flame popped up, pressed something else, said ‘I don’t know what that screen does’ pressed ‘back’ and the aircon kicked into life. I thanked her, she left, and I turned my attention to the bed.

This is the Ecceleston Square Hotel’s selling point. “The beds”, reads the hotel blurb “are sumptuous, handcrafted Swedish Hästens massage beds, widely regarded as the best in the world” and are made from natural fibres such as “horsehair, cotton, pine, flax, and wool”. Which is all very well, but what do the buttons do? A remote control, wired near the pillow opens up an experimental theme park of slumber-related action.

You will get an (excellent) night’s sleep, but not before you’ve folded the bed every which way, worked through the massage settings, and jumped off it in a panic when it almost folds you in half. It’s tremendous fun – and I was there on my own. One can only imagine the, er, other possibilities. Then, having sprayed the ‘complimentary pillow mist’ into the air and sniffing (lavender, notes of orange), I decided to explore the bathroom.

First off, there’s a TV built into the mirror which, when I’d worked out how to switch it on, was a novel shower companion. Clever mirrors opened up to reveal hidden storage full of L’Occitane fancies and I was pleased to note that operating the shower (another potential for a hotel bugbear) was straightforward.

Slightly disconcerting is the fact that the shower wall is a floor to ceiling window that looks straight into the bedroom and vice versa. An interesting design choice, and surely an anathema to a partner who just wants to watch Bargain Hunt from the expensive bed while you’re abluting alongside This Morning on the bathroom telly. However, one flick of yet another switch and the window instantly frosts over in a manner that makes you go ‘ooh that’s clever’.

It’s sort of pointless – it could just be permanently frosted or maybe a wall, but I played with this glass-gadget for ages. Post shower, I found another clever mirror in the bedroom that folded out so you could see yourself in 360 degrees, should that be your thing. And, if you missed a bit, there’s always the polished chrome of the coffee machine.

Obviously after all of this I was tired, so I flattened the bed (power sockets next to headboard – another tick), figured out that the bedside light had an old-fashioned click switch, and went to sleep.

Morning brought breakfast (continental) in a small (smart, obviously) dining room dominated by a giant screen scrolling through high-definition drone shots of locations around the world, followed by a stroll to Eccleston Yards, a nearby stretch of bars, boutiques and restaurants, and also nearby is Elizabeth Street, “the prettiest street in London” full of little independent stores and, of course, being so close to Victoria, the whole of the Capital, and all it has to offer, is on your doorstep. But, on the whole, you might prefer the local theme park, which is back in your technological marvel of your room.