Galway property and investment company Edward Holdings has been granted planning permission to turn historic Bow Street Magistrates' Court and police station in London into a hotel.

Westminster City Council granted planning permission for the grade II listed building to be developed. The company, owned by Galway developer Gerry Barrett, bought the premises in 2005.

The magistrate's court has a colourful history with links to Ireland, playing host to the arraignment and trials of many famous figures. The Fenian dynamite bombers, Oscar Wilde, Sir Roger Casement and more recently William Joyce, better know as 'Lord Haw Haw', all saw the inside of the Bow Street cells. In the last 25 years, Bow Street was also the place where many Irish arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act were arraigned, including the Guilford Four and the Maguire Seven.

East End gangster Reggie Kray spent time in the cells of Bow Street in the 1960s and former Chilean military leader Augusto Pinochet appeared there to answer human rights charges. It was at Bow Street that the famous Bow Street runners, the first organised police service in London, were based in the 18th century.

Barrett said Bow Street's history will be respected during the redevelopment: "Edward Holdings is fully aware of the architectural and historical significance of the buildings in Bow Street and is committed to their sympathetic redevelopment."