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The Bad House?
Feeling trapped in your day-to-day life? How about a visit to the house of pain? The big house? The Malmaison Oxford is a former prison which has been converted into a luxury hotel.
This building served as a prison for 125 years before being shuttered in 1996 and converted into a boutique hotel by the London-based chain, Malmaison (which takes its name--literally, "bad house"--from Napoleon's Paris chateau). The Oxford former prison has retained many of its fixtures, and most rooms are made up of three cells combined.
The site itself has been a prison since the 12th century, but the current prison was built in 1870. Fortunately for guests, the prison was considered particularly "airy" and "light." It also served as a set for Michael Caine's The Italian Job.
Filed under: Europe, United Kingdom, Hotels and Accommodations
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Iain Jan 19th 2007 4:09AM
The exemplar of this must be Istanbul's Four Seasons: another five star hotel built in the prison that Midnight Express made preferable only to hell. Visions of large Turkish men undoing their belts still accost me...
They have, I suppose, painted it a very pretty shade of yellow.
I'm told Oliver Stone apologised for the film. And that the Turkish is really, really bad: the actors were from Syria or Iran because good Turks woulodn't accept the role. True? Or just the rants of an man in Beramkalle?
Iain Jan 18th 2007 9:43AM
The exemplar of this must be Istanbul's Four Seasons: another five star hotel built in the prison that Midnight Express made preferable only to hell. Visions of large Turkish men undoing their belts still accost me...
They have, I suppose, painted it a very pretty shade of yellow.
I'm told Oliver Stone apologised for the film. And that the Turkish is really, really bad: the actors were from Syria or Iran because good Turks woulodn't accept the role. True? Or just the rants of an man in Beramkalle?