Berners Street hoax
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The Berners Street hoax was perpetrated by the writer Theodore Hook in Westminster in 1810. After several weeks of preparation he made an apparently spontaneous bet with a friend that he could transfo
A caricature of the hoax by William Heath
c. 1810 portrait of Theodore Hook, the hoax's perpetrator
Illustration of the hoax
Sanderson Hotel
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The Sanderson Hotel is a hotel on Berners Street, London, built in 1958.
Berners Street hoax
…there was a grudge between Mrs Tottenham and Hook and his friends, but provided no details. As at 2025 the site at 54 Berners Street is occupied by the Sanderson Hotel. List of practical joke topics…
Sanderson Hotel, Berners Street
Glass mural by John Piper