Malmaison Oxford

It’s perhaps a depressing commentary on this whole business that hotels are so easily made from old prisons. Somehow we tolerate floor after floor of double-loaded corridors, lined with identical shoebox-sized living quarters, as long as we’re shelling out for the privilege of coming and going as we please. But however bizarre in concept, in execution it’s actually often quite inspiring; these old institutional buildings don’t lack for drama, and given the modern taste for rough-edged renovations and walls of bare brick, renovations are often simpler than one might imagine.

The Malmaison Oxford isn’t just any old prison, of course, but a really rather picturesque Victorian-era prison, and a part of the new Oxford Castle redevelopment. As a boutique hotel, it’s no fly-by-night either, but a part of the terrifically successful Malmaison chain, the group responsible for a high-design bachelor-pad sort of boutique in just about every market in the UK. And to be completely fair, when all is said and done, there’s very little of the shoebox about these rooms — compare with the carefully preserved “display cell” and see if you don’t vastly prefer your vast, overstuffed bed, your entertainment center, your very nearly decadent bathroom stocked with Malmaison-branded bath products.

It’s not just a success by Malmaison standards — complete with signature brasserie and hip lobby bar — but a breath of fresh air for Oxford as well, a city that’s long been hard up for good hotels. You could always do country-mansion at Quat’Saisons, or old-bank at the Old Bank, but for hard time behind bars (or just in front of one, really) it’s the Malmaison.