A revivalist restaurant named `Victouriana'
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• A new tourist venture launched in London yesterday is a twice-daily trip to see the sights of Victorian London—its streets, buildings, theatres and pubs—aboard a Victorian revivalist restaurant, the Victouriana, in the shape of an ex-London Transport RT double-decker.
This latest addition to London's tourist attractions follows a similar pattern to the Upper Crust mobile restaurant of J. Lyons and Co Ltd (CM May 21) with the restaurant on the upper deck of the vehicle and kitchens on the lower deck. At this point the similarities cease, however, as the Victouriana, as its name suggests, is styled in the manner of the last century, with the 23-seat restaurant decorated in Victorian style—based on Queen Victoria's Railway Carriage—and the exterior painted like an Edwardian Pullman car in blue, red and gold livery.
The interior furnishings include individual tables. buttonback leather seating, full carpeting, velvet curtains, gas-light type lamp fittings and girls in Victorian costume to serve the passengers. In addition to the kitchens, the lower deck contains a souvenir shop, which will be open while travelling.
In addition to its striking livery, the exterior of the vehicle carries period-style advertisements on the sides and engraved pub-type glass in the windows on the lower deck. The Victouriana should become a regular feature of the London street scene, as it is intended to operate every day of the year, including Christmas Day.
Normally the bus will start from the Royal Lancaster Hotel twice daily, taking passengers on a trip through London and then crossing the Thames by Chelsea Bridge, stopping for lunch in Battersea Park, where they will eat on board, before returning to the Royal Lancaster. The whole trip, including the food, will cost 0.75 per head.
The Victouriana is the brainchild of director Frank Morris, a Canadian who came to Britain in 1966 and has stayed ever since. Within 18 months he acquired five supermarkets and an obsession for period revivals. He has spent two years working on this project, and within the next two years hopes to have other buses on the road in varying periods of historical decor which, he says, will include one Georgian bus, one Regency and one in the style of the Twenties.
Conversion of the bus—purchased for f600—cost £10,000, and was undertaken by LPC Coaches Ltd, a long-established firm of coachbuilders in Hounslow. Two-thirds of the exterior panelling was replaced, and four coats of paint and two of varnish were applied. The whole of the interior was built to the drawings of Garnett, Cloughley and Blakemore, architects and designers.
The Victouriana is available for halfor full-day London sightseeing tours and evening tours. Reservations and bookings may be made through Grangecroft Ltd, 706 Park West, Burwood Place, London W2 (phone 01-402 6571).