Belfast's Latest Hotel

The latest edition to Belfast's ever-increasing number of hotels is opening later. It is called the Fitzwilliam Hotel, and it is a sister hotel to its namesake in Dublin. It is located at 1, Great Victoria Street. It stands beside - and looks down on - the Grand Opera House. The new hotel will doubtless receive a fair percentage of visiting actors, among others. It boasts 130 luxurious bedrooms.

These hotels may be named after the Earls Fitzwilliam, the 10th earl of whom died in 1979 when the earldom became extinct. I await elucidation from the hotel about this.

This block between Grosvenor Road and Glengall Street was originally a terrace of five-storey homes from 1835. The terrace was demolished in 1905 to make way for Mr Crewe's new theatre, the Hippodrome.

The Royal Hippodrome theatre, pictured right, stood here in 1907, although it suffered an unsympathetic renovation in 1960 when much of the façade was butchered and it was renamed the Odeon cinema. Its name changed, again, in 1974 to become the New Vic cinema.

My father used to take me to this cinema to see the latest James Bond films during the late sixties and early seventies.