Hilton London Paddington

The funding came in large part from the Directors of the Great Western Railway Company, who were persuaded by Brunel to buy shares in the project.

The building effectively forms the main façade of the station, closing off the end of the train shed at the head of the terminal platforms.

In its original form, the hotel was extensively ornamented inside and outside, and there is a surviving allegorical sculpture in the pediment by John Thomas.

The 2nd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, whose former seat was Stowe House, died as a bankrupt in the hotel in July 1861.

The railway company took full control of its operation in the later nineteenth century, and in the 1930s extended and remodelled it within and without under the direction of their architect Percy Emerson Culverhouse.