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Princess-to-be will spend last night as a commoner with mother and sister at hotel with a rich heritage of royal visitors One of London’s finest – and usually most discreet – hotels, where Kate Middleton will spend the night before her wedding has taken advantage of its royal connection to release promotional film footage to broadcasters. The Goring Hotel ‘s initiative is the latest commercial venture linked to the royal wedding on 29 April – hot on the heels of a petfood company’s plans, announced on Friday , to create a 68kg cake for dogs, to be made in the shape of a corgi. A spokeswoman for the hotel said the film had been made available in anticipation of a deluge of media requests. Asked whether the Goring was expecting a dramatic increase in customers interested in booking the suite where Middleton, her mother Carole and sister Pippa, will stay, she replied: “Who knows?” The five-room suite has been newly redecorated, apparently as part of a general refurbishment of the hotel following its centenary last year. It contains Queen Victoria’s silk bridal gown and tiara, framed in a wardrobe, a grand piano, an original 19th-century toilet and, bizarrely, hanging above the bath, what appears to be a cartoon picture of the television character Edmund Blackadder kissing the hand of Elizabeth I. Unauthorised photographs of the suite, some showing boxes of furnishings still to be unpacked, have been published in the Sun . “I could not tell you how much the room will cost after the wedding,” the spokeswoman said. “That is to be decided, but it will be in line with comparable hotels.” The Middleton family will be staying at a hotel with a rich royal heritage: previous visitors have included Queen Mary, the wife of George V, who would take afternoon tea there, and the Queen Mother, whose last outing before her death was to the Goring. The hotel is still in the ownership of the family that opened it in 1910: the current chief executive Jeremy Goring, a surfer and former rock drummer, is the great-grandson of the founder.The hotel is in a quiet sidestreet a short walk from Buckingham Palace. Furnished in the style of a London club or a wood-panelled English country house, it is usually a haunt of diplomats, politicians and American bishops. The 71 rooms at the Goring cost upwards of £400 a night, while a suite can set guests back up to £1,525 a night, according to previously published tariffs. The Middletons’ suite is at the top of the hotel, overlooking a quiet internal garden square. Clarence House insisted that staying there was the family’s personal choice, in preference to Buckingham Palace. Perhaps they had heard the story of a Norwegian crown prince who stayed at the Goring instead of the palace when he was attending a coronation, saying that at least there he would not have to share a bathroom. On a normal day the half-mile trip to Westminster Abbey could take 15 minutes along Victoria Street by car, but, even allowing for a detour up the Mall, across Horseguards Parade, down Whitehall and round Parliament Square, timings for the royal wedding released on Friday allow only nine minutes for the journey on the day itself. Middleton and her father Michael will leave at 10.51am – to be driven to the abbey for the ceremony at 11am. The schedule issued by St James’s Palace is astonishingly precise – life is so much easier with no other trafficto worry about. The abbey will be open to the congregation from 8.15am. Prince William and his brother – and best man – Prince Harry will leave Clarence House at 10.10am and arrive at the church five minutes later, followed by his father and stepmother who leave home at 10.38am and arrive at 10.42am. The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh will depart from Buckingham Palace at 10.40am and arrive at the abbey’s west door five minutes later. The service finishes at 12.15pm, after which the newlyweds will ride to Buckingham Palace in a carriage. The kiss on the palace balcony is scheduled for 1.25pm and five minutes later there will then be an RAF flypast and Battle of Britain memorial flight. Ooh factor The Goring hotel was opened by Otto Goring in 1910, just a few yards from Buckingham Palace and boasted that it was the first hotel in London not only to have central heating in the bedrooms but en suite bathrooms with every room – all for seven shillings and six pence a night in its early days. Nowadays the amenities are slightly more exotic: a Daily Telegraph journalist staying at the hotel this year noted the lights in her room registered four levels: bright, calm, cosy and ooh – the latter, she noted, was a sex light. Beside its frequent royal visitors, Winston Churchill was a guest and his mother, Jennie, actually moved in in 1919. During the second world war it was a command centre for General Dwight Eisenhower, the chief of allied forces. Jeremy Goring, the chief executive, said last year: “Some of our guests still come here on a Friday night and get a little hammered.” Royal wedding Monarchy Weddings Kate Middleton Hotels Stephen Bates guardian.co.uk