On this page (5 sections)
The oldest hotel at Heathrow
Every other hotel around this airport is an airport hotel. This one is the airport's first, and the distinction is real rather than decorative. It was built for J. Lyons and Co. in 1960, designed by Russell Diplock and Associates, and opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 16 December 1960. At the time it was the first hotel built at what was then London Airport. The hotel’s own 1962 brochure went further and called it the first circular hotel in Europe; that is the subject’s own marketing rather than an independent finding, and the architectural record confirms only that the circular plan was unprecedented in Britain.
The circular plan was not a gimmick. A ring of rooms around a central core gave the building a small footprint on a constrained site, and it let the architects face one set of rooms outward towards the road and the airfield and another inward towards a quiet courtyard. The spiral staircase is an original feature of that design and still is one. The name was borrowed from an early aircraft, which is why an aviation theme runs through the building.
The brand has moved several times since. It spent years as a Holiday Inn, was managed from 2015 by the RBH group as a Holiday Inn franchise, and transferred to Best Western around 2021. The building never moved, so reviews written under three different names all describe the same round hotel at the same address. Check the postcode rather than the brand when you are reading them.
What the doughnut means for the rooms
The hotel was built with 185 rooms and is advertised today with 184, over four storeys. The one-room difference is the kind of thing that happens across decades of refurbishment, and it is worth stating both figures rather than pretending the count has never moved.
The ring plan shapes what you can book. The doughnut design allowed dedicated single-bed rooms around the inside ring, which is unusual: most airport hotels sell you a double and charge a single occupancy rate for it. If you are travelling alone, ask what the inner ring costs. The outer ring faces the road and the airfield, and some rooms face the runways, with guests reporting aircraft views.
Rooms are air conditioned with double glazing and blackout curtains, which is the specification that makes a hotel this close to the airfield habitable. Executive rooms add bathrobes, slippers and a Bluetooth sound system. The trade is the familiar one for this stretch of the Bath Road: a genuine attraction if you enjoy watching aircraft, and a genuine problem if you sleep lightly. Ask for the courtyard side if you want quiet. Guest reviews are mixed on the state of the rooms, and the recurring words are dated and small, which is fair for the price bracket and the building's age.
Where it is, and getting to the terminals
The address is 118 Bath Road, Hayes, UB3 5AJ, in the Harlington stretch of the corridor. That puts it a few doors from the ibis at 112 Bath Road, close enough that the two are direct competitors and a driver given "the hotel on the Bath Road" has several plausible answers. Quote the number and the name. It sits at the closer end of the corridor to the central terminals, around a mile out and under ten minutes by road.
There is no free hotel shuttle, and no hotel on this road has one. The Hotel Hoppa serves the corridor at £7.00 single and £13.00 return per adult, with a group ticket for up to four passengers at £20.00 single. The Transport for London buses 105 and 111 run the same road into the central bus station between Terminals 2 and 3 at £1.75 a journey with contactless, and guest reviews single out the bus stops outside the door as one of the hotel's better features. For a solo traveller with one bag, the bus is roughly a quarter of the Hoppa fare.
Terminal 5 and Terminal 4 both need more thought. The 105 and 111 reach the central bus station and leave you to transfer for T5, and the Hoppa does not call at Terminal 4 at all. Check which terminal your airline uses before you decide how to get across, because a mile from the terminals is only useful if the mile ends where you are flying from.
The car park, and the complaint that follows it
This is the part to read before you leave a car here, and the price is the smaller half of it. Best Western publishes two different parking rates on two of its own channels: £18 per day on bestwestern.com, and £15 per 24 hours on its UK site. Third-party listings quote around £16, which sits between the two. Confirm which figure applies to your booking when you reserve rather than at the barrier.
More important than the price is the operation. Guest reviews on Best Western's own listing repeatedly report that the car park is run by a separate company rather than the hotel, and several describe receiving parking charge notices after their stay. It is the single most common complaint on the property and it recurs across years rather than clustering in one bad month. That pattern is reported guest experience rather than a published policy, so treat it as a warning to be careful rather than a rule, but the volume of it is hard to dismiss.
If you do park here, take three precautions: register the vehicle registration at reception on arrival and get a confirmation you can keep, photograph the signage and the bay, and keep your booking confirmation until well after the stay. The same advice applies at any hotel where a third party runs the barrier, and it is the reason the published, hotel-operated car parks along this road are worth a few pounds more. Compare the rates that are published on hotels with parking, and note that the Leonardo and the Hyatt Place both state their terms in advance.
Who it suits, honestly
Book it if you want a cheap, well-placed bed at the closer end of the Bath Road, you are travelling alone and the inner-ring single rooms save you a double-occupancy supplement, or you like the idea of staying in the building that started the airport hotel. If you are flying from Terminal 2 or Terminal 3 and taking the bus from the door, the position is genuinely good.
Look elsewhere if you are driving and leaving a car, which is the one thing this hotel makes harder than its neighbours do. Look elsewhere too if you want a modern room, because the building dates from 1960 and reviews are consistent that it shows, and if you are flying from Terminal 4 or Terminal 5, where the transfer erodes the location advantage.
The honest summary is a hotel with a better story than product. The history is real and the position is good. The car park is the reason to think twice, and the reason to read the terms rather than the plaque.