Eaton Square
51°29′46″N 0°9′6″W / 51.49611°N 0.15167°W
Eaton Square is a rectangular,
The six adjoining, tree-planted, central gardens of Eaton Square are Grade II listed on the
The K6 red telephone box outside No. 103 is Grade II listed.[5]
Overview
The houses in Eaton Square are large, predominantly three-bay-wide buildings, joined in regular terraces in a classical style, with four or five main storeys, plus attic and basement and a
As to roads: the whole rectangle is divided into six compartments or zones as it is bisected lengthways by the Victoria or Buckingham Palace approach way to the King's Road which is very diversely and briefly successively named northeast of Sloane Square). Crossways, it is spanned by four less important roads, all of which change name before during and after their transit across the square. All of the roads while in transit across the square assume the name Eaton Square and most of them are one-way, with no full outer circuit in any one direction permitted or possible.
In 1900, the Welsh Industrial Association held an exhibition at 83 Eaton Square, rented by the
Between 1916 and 1917, building 87 briefly became the "Countess of Dundonald Hospital", treating many of the wounded in the Great War, George V and Queen Consort Mary of Teck visited the patients at the hospital, they were greeted by the Staff and Countess of Dundonald herself.[7][8]
Before World War II, homes on the street ranked as those of the
Co-fronting the north-east end is St Peter's, a 200-feet-long, tree-lined Church of England church, in a classical style, fronted by a six-columned Ionic portico behind which is a slender clock tower. It was designed by Henry Hakewill and built between 1824 and 1827 (during the square's building).
Between 1940 and 1944 the Belgian government in exile occupied its three numbers which have been long used as that country's embassy in Britain and further premises in central London as their lesser homes and offices.
Fictional references
- Eaton Square
- Adam Verver and his wife, the former Charlotte Stant live at the square in the last complete major novel by Henry James, The Golden Bowl.[b]
- In the original newspaper piece that was expanded into Gilbert and Sullivan's Trial by Jury, the judge invites the rest of the cast to his house in "Five hundred and eleven, Eaton Square" for the wedding breakfast.[9]
- In Angela Carter's last novel, Wise Children, Eaton Square is visited by Peregrine Hazard after returning by cab from the beach.
- In Anthony Trollope's novel The Bertrams Sir Henry Harcourt and his unhappy bride Lady Harcourt (Caroline Waddington) take a house in the square after their marriage.
- In Charles Gurney Seymour, future cabinet minister and son of the Earl of Bridgwater, and his wife Lady Fiona, daughter of the Duke of Falkirk, live in Eaton Square.
- BBC 1938 radio series Send for Paul Temple bases him in the street; readers find him at flat "№26A" in novelization Paul Temple and the Tyler Mystery ; also given as 127A in Paul Temple and the Tyler Mystery
- Lady Rosamund Painswick lives at the square in Downton Abbey.
The Bellamy family of Upstairs, Downstairs lived in "165" Eaton Place, one of the grand approach ways.
Notable residents
- No. 1: Ronnie Kray[11]
- No. 2: Diana Mitford, Lady Mosley[12]
- No. 36: Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother[13]and grandmother of Diana, Princess of Wales
- No. 37: Neville Chamberlain – British Prime Minister[14]
- No. 37: Joachim von Ribbentrop – German Ambassador to London [citation needed]
- No. 39: Lady Aline Caroline Cholmondeley, daughter of George Cholmondeley, 5th Marquess of Cholmondeley and Sybil Cholmondeley, Marchioness of Cholmondeley. She died on 30 June 2015 at age 98.[15]
- No. 42: Peter Thorneycroft – British Chancellor of the Exchequer[citation needed]
- No. 44: Prince Metternich – Austrian statesman[16]
- No. 45: George Tryon – British Admiral who died in the sinking of HMS Victoria in 1893[citation needed]
- No. 54: Oscar-winning actress; Luise Rainer – Oscar-winning actress[17]
- No. 68: Thomas Campbell Robertson, British colonial administrator in India, died here in 1863;[18] Barry Gibb of the pop group the Bee Gees, 1970.[citation needed]
- No. 72: Sir Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. [citation needed]
- No. 75: Rex Harrison – Oscar-winning actor[citation needed]
- No. 80: George Peabody – American banker and philanthropist[19]
- No. 82: Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands in 1940.[20]
- No. 84: Stafford Harry Northcote, Viscount Saint Cyres – diplomat and historian[21]
- No. 86: Foreign Secretary[22]
- No. 93: Stanley Baldwin – British Prime Minister[23]
- No. 97: Sir Francis Scott Bt and Lady Scott of Great Barr (d. 1863 and 1909 respectively)
- No. 99: Admiral of the Fleet Sir John West[24]
- No. 100: Hugh Grosvenor, 7th Duke of Westminster - freeholder of most of the square and most of the surrounding district[citation needed]
- No. 102: Instituto Cervantes[25]
- No. 112: Admiral of the Fleet Sir Henry Codrington;[26] Leo Amery - politician and minister in Churchill's wartime cabinet; and his son Julian Amery, Baron Amery of Lustleigh, Conservative MP.[citation needed]
- No. 114: Harry Stuart Goodhart-Rendell – architect[citation needed]
- No. 106: The embassy of Bolivia
- No. 115: Admiral of the Fleet Sir George Seymour[27]
- No. 118: Sir William Corry, Bt., of Dunraven, Co. Antrim (d. 1926)[citation needed]
- No. 57 Lower Belgrave St (corner of Eaton Sq.) Chelsea Football Club[citation needed]
- George Soros – Hungarian-born hedge fund manager.[28]
- John King, Baron King of Wartnaby[citation needed]
- Princess Katherine of Greece and Denmark [citation needed]
- Alfred Robens, Baron Robens of Woldingham – politician and chairman of the National Coal Board [citation needed]
- Mr and Mrs Ernest Aldrich Simpson from 1958[citation needed]
- Sarah, Duchess of York, from 2014[citation needed]
- Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber - composer and theatre impresario; in 2024 he revealed he had had his house blessed by a priest in an attempt to displace a "poltergeist" that was haunting the property.[29]
Footnotes and citations
Footnotes
Citations
- ^ "London's Eaton Square most expensive place to buy home in Britain". BBC. 23 December 2016. Retrieved 23 December 2016.
- ^ Historic England, "The Grosvenor Estate: Eaton Square (1000801)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 20 March 2018
- ^ At Grade II: Historic England, "1–7 Eaton Square, SW1 (1066886)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 20 March 2018
Historic England, "63–66 Eaton Square (1066854)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 20 March 2018
Historic England, "Eaton House [66a] (1356978)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 20 March 2018 - ^ At Grade II*:
Historic England, "8-12A, 14–23 Eaton Square (1066852)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 19 January 2020
Historic England, "24 and 24a to 48 (1357004)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 19 January 2020
Historic England, "51–62 (1066853)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 19 January 2020
Historic England, "63–71 (1066855)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 19 January 2020
Historic England, "72 and 101–105 Eaton Place (1211084)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 19 January 2020
Historic England, "73–82 (1211084)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 19 January 2020
Historic England, "83–102 (1356981)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 19 January 2020
Historic England, "103–118 (1066851)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 19 January 2020 - ^ Historic England, "k6 telephone kiosk outside flank elevation of 103 Eaton Square (1357185)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 20 March 2018
- ^ Western Mail (Cardiff, Wales), 9 June 1900.
- ^ "Lost Hospitals of London | Countess of Dundonald's Hospital".
- ^ Queenslander (Brisbane, QLD) - 17 February 1917.
- Gilbert, W. S.; Sullivan, Arthur (2001). Ian Bradley (ed.). The Complete Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 36.
- ^ Kelly's Handbook to the Titled, Landed & Official Classes. Kelly & Co. 1882. p. 400.
- ^ Plaques, Open. "Robert Boothby blue plaque". openplaques.org.
- ^ Hilary Spurling, "Hitler was her Uncle Wolf", The Daily Telegraph, 17 November 2003, review of Diana Mosley by Anne de Courcy: "1933... Diana left her husband, 'moving with a skeleton staff of nanny, cook, house-parlourmaid and lady's maid to a house at 2 Eaton Square, round the corner from Mosley's flat'..."
- ^ Who's Who, 1980 (Adam and Charles Black, London) p. 837
- ^ Plaques, Open. "Neville Chamberlain blue plaque". openplaques.org.
- ^ Mosley, Charles, editor. Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 107th edition, 3 volumes. Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.A.: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 2003.
- ^ Plaques, Open. "Klemens von Metternich blue plaque". openplaques.org.
- ^ Plaques, Open. "Vivien Leigh blue plaque". openplaques.org.
- doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/23813. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ Plaques, Open. "George Peabody blue plaque". openplaques.org.
- ^ "H.M. koningin Wilhelmina Helena Pauline Maria , koningin der Nederlanden, prinses van Oranje-Nassau (koningin Wilhelmina)". www.parlement.com.
- ^ Frederick George Aflalo, Joseph Jacobs, Herbert Arthur Morrah, The Literary Year-book, Vol. 23 (1922), p. 1109
- ^ Plaques, Open. "Edward Wood blue plaque". openplaques.org.
- ^ Plaques, Open. "Stanley Baldwin blue plaque". openplaques.org.
- required.)
- ^ Marko Schweizer, World Guide to Library, Archive, and Information Science (2011), p. 52
- required.)
- doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/25170. Retrieved 21 February 2015. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ "Rich pickings for the hawk of Eaton Square". Evening Standard. 2 April 2012.
- ^ "Andrew Lloyd Webber asked priest to bless London home over poltergeist". The Guardian. 3 January 2024. Retrieved 11 January 2024.