From the Dover Express 20 October 1994.

HISTORIC Southern House the former Lord Warden hotel in Dover's dockland - is gelling a facelift.

The massive building, hemmed in at the Western Docks by railway lines, is undergoing repairs and a paint-up.

Owner Stena Sealink said it was still looking for tenants for the property that is virtually empty. A spokesman said its policy was to try to keep its properties in good order.

The Lord Warden, this week clothed in scaffolding, was once Dover's top hotel and guests there included Louis Napoleon and his family, Charles Dickens and a host of diplomats and titled heads of Europe.

During the war years it became a headquarters for the Royal Navy in Dover and in the days of peace was the local headquarters of British Rail Board and the seat of the Dover Collection of Customs.

Stena, who inherited the property via British Rail and Sealink, at one stage was preparing to offer it for sale but later decided to keep it.

It is next to the area zoned for development under Dover Harbour Board's £100 million ten year plan for the regeneration of the Western Docks.

From the Dover Express 3 September 1998 by Bob Hollingsbee.

HOTEL SPLENDOUR PRE-1900: The former Lord Warden Hotel which once entertained important guests from around the world, including Napoleon III and his wife Eugenie.

SOON after joining the Dover Express in 1954 as a very raw junior (after a false start in engineering, which I soon discovered was not for me), I realised what a rich source of local history the files of a newspaper are.

So, when I heard the good news that the former Lord Warden Hotel, for many years in recent times used as railway company offices, was to be taken over by the Dover Harbour Board, I knew where to find a 'potted history' of the building.

And that was a cuttings file I have built up over many years of Express features written by members of the editorial staff over four decades I have been with the paper, and before that back to the legendary local historian and editor of the Express, John Bavington Jones.

In fact the year before I joined the staff there was a feature about "The Building which knows 100 years of Secrets." It tells how the building opened a century before, in 1853, having been built by the South Eastern Railway Company as the Lord Warden Hotel.

It entertained a long line of distinguished men and women from England and overseas and its fame for entertaining soon spread throughout the world.

Commanding fine views along the coast, across the harbour and out to the Channel it also had the advantage for passengers of having a covered walkway at first floor level to the old Town Station which was just across the street.

Also but a short step across the road on the seaward side of the hotel was a station on the Admiralty Pier, and later the much grander Marine Station which replaced it. The latter of course has now been converted in to a modern liner terminal.

It was within the hotel walls that in March 1671 Napoleon III was reunited with his faithful wife Eugenie after his release from Wilhelmshole Castle, Germany where he had been kept since his surrender at the fall of Sedan.

Charles Dickens was a regular guest and in a letter dated 1863 he described mine hosts at the hotel, Mr and Mrs John Birmingham as "my much esteemed friends," at the same time adding that they were "too conceited" with the comforts of the establishment, especially when the night mail boat or train was about to start.

The hotel was owned at one time by Gordon's Hotels and later by Fredericks. Between the wars the hotel still attracted a polished clientele and many still recall the nights of dancing and eating in the once celebrated ballroom. During the Second World War it played an important military role as a rest and signal centre but by the end presented a sorry sight for those who remember its past splendour.

Then it became offices for British Railways as Southern House, later had a Customs role and then Stena took over.