[1] Geoff Brandwood and Jane Jephcote's guide to heritage pubs in London describes it as "a truly magnificent pub-cum-hotel" with "superb fittings", including extensive use of marble.

The story was that Frank Crocker, believing he had a reliable tip-off about the site of the new terminus of the Great Central Railway, built the pub on a lavish scale to serve it, however when the terminus was actually built it turned out to be over half a mile away at Marylebone Station – leading to Crocker's ruin, despair and eventual suicide, jumping from the window of an upper floor.

[5] Every wall, window and ceiling was decorated in ornate style, with soaring pillars, wood panelling and elaborate stucco featuring gambolling cherubs.

Its grand saloon used 50 types of marble to create a magnificent bar-top, archways, an enormous fireplace and soaring pillars, which in turn supported the opulent part-gilded beamed ceiling.

The pub closed in autumn 2004[6] and in November 2011, Westminster City Council gave outline planning consent for the conversion of the three upper floors to residential use.