 It was here too that Lord Nelson spent secret hours with his love Emma Hamilton, before going to vanquish Napoleon's fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar.The American businessman, Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, visited the hotel frequently in the 1890s, stopping to take lunch and to collect telegrams.He and a number of other millionaires, including James Hazen Hyde, practised the old English coaching techniques of the early 19th century for sport.