Pimlico

Pimlico
Belgrave Road from St George's Square
Map of Pimlico
Pimlico Location within Greater London
OS grid reference	TQ295785
London borough	Westminster
Ceremonial county	Greater London
Region	London
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	LONDON
Postcode district	SW1V
Dialling code	020
Police	Metropolitan
Fire	London
Ambulance	London
UK Parliament	Cities of London and Westminster
London Assembly	West Central
List of places UK England London 51°29′19″N 0°08′22″W / 51.4887°N 0.1395°W / 51.4887; -0.1395

Pimlico (

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Manor of Ebury was divided up and leased by the Crown to servants or favourites. In 1623, James I sold the freehold of Ebury for £1,151 and 15 shillings.^[a] The land was sold on several more times, until it came into the hands of heiress Mary Davies in 1666.

Mary's dowry not only included "The Five Fields" of modern-day Pimlico and Belgravia, but also most of what is now Mayfair and Knightsbridge. Understandably, she was much pursued but in 1677, at the age of twelve, married Sir Thomas Grosvenor, 3rd Baronet. The Grosvenors were a family of Norman descent long seated at Eaton Hall in Cheshire who, until this auspicious marriage, were of but local consequence in their native county of Cheshire. Through the development and good management of this land the Grosvenors acquired enormous wealth.

At some point in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century, the area ceased to be known as Ebury or "The Five Fields" and gained the name by which it is now known. While its origins are disputed, it is "clearly of foreign derivation.... [William] Gifford, in a note in his edition of Ben Jonson, tells us that 'Pimlico is sometimes spoken of as a person, and may not improbably have been the master of a house once famous for ale of a particular description'."^[2] Supporting this etymology, E. Cobham Brewer describes the area as "a district of public gardens much frequented on holidays. According to tradition, it received its name from Ben Pimlico, famous for his nut-brown ale. His tea-gardens, however, were near Hoxton, and the road to them was termed Pimlico Path, so that what is now called Pimlico was so named from the popularity of the Hoxton resort".^[3]

H. G. Wells, in his novel The Dream, says that there was a wharf at Pimlico where ships from America docked and that the word Pimlico came with the trade and was the last word left alive of the Algonquin Indian language (Pamlico).

By the 19th century, and as a result of an increase in demand for property in the previously unfashionable West End of London following the Great Plague of London and the Great Fire of London, Pimlico had become ripe for development. In 1825, Thomas Cubitt was contracted by Lord Grosvenor to develop Pimlico. The land up to this time had been marshy but was reclaimed using soil excavated during the construction of St Katharine Docks.^[4]

Cubitt developed Pimlico as a grid of handsome white stucco terraces. The largest and most opulent houses were built along St George's Drive and

An 1877 newspaper article described Pimlico as "genteel, sacred to professional men… not rich enough to luxuriate in Belgravia proper, but rich enough to live in private houses." Its inhabitants were "more lively than in Kensington… and yet a cut above Chelsea, which is only commercial."[5]

Although the area was dominated by the well-to-do middle and upper-middle classes as late as

In 1908, G. K. Chesterton described Pimlico as "a desperate thing" in his philosophical treatise Orthodoxy.^[8]

Through the late nineteenth century, Pimlico saw the construction of several Peabody Estates, charitable housing projects designed to provide affordable, quality homes.

Proximity to the

To provide affordable and efficient heating to the residents of the new post-war developments, Pimlico became one of the few places in the UK to have a district heating system installed. District heating became popular after World War II to heat the large residential estates that replaced areas devastated by the Blitz. The Pimlico District Heating Undertaking (PDHU) is just north of the River Thames. The PDHU first became operational in 1950 and continues to expand to this day. The PDHU once relied on waste heat from the now-disused Battersea Power Station on the south side of the River Thames. It is still in operation, the water now being heated locally by a new energy centre which incorporates 3.1 MWe /4.0 MWTh of gas-fired CHP engines and 3 × 8 MW gas-fired boilers.

In 1953, the Second Duke of Westminster sold the part of the Grosvenor estate on which Pimlico is built.^[9]

In 1970, whilst Roger Byron-Collins was a partner in Mullett Booker Estate Agents in Albion Street on the Hyde Park Estate, he sold the entire 27 acre freehold Pimlico Estate for £4.4 million to Jack Dellal of Dalton Barton Bank in a JV with Peter Crane of City and Municipal Properties, being a consortium controlled by the Hanson Trust. He was introduced to the owners of the Estate by the Hon Brian Alexander, son of Field Marshal Earl Alexander of Tunis, who at that time represented Previews International, a part of Coldwell Banker. Brian Alexander's friend, Colin Tennant, Lord Glenconner, owner of Mustique island in the Caribbean was friends with Henry Cubitt, Baron Ashcombe the chairman of the builders, Holland, Hannen and Cubbits who developed the estate comprising 480 homes in the 19th Century and were major shareholders in partnership with Harry Reynolds of Reynolds Engineering of then owners CR Developments. Brian Alexander after leaving Previews International, eventually became MD of the Mustique Company for many decades..^[10]

Pimlico was connected to the

For a history of street name etymologies in the area see: Street names of Pimlico and Victoria

Dolphin Square is a block of private apartments built between 1935 and 1937. At the time of their construction the development was billed as the largest self-contained block of flats in Europe. It is home to many Members of Parliament (MPs).

Churchill Gardens is a large housing estate covering the south-west corner of Pimlico. It was developed between 1946 and 1962 to a design by the architects Powell and Moya, replacing docks, industrial works, and several Cubitt terraces damaged in the Blitz.

On Buckingham Palace Road is the former "Empire Terminal" of

Pimlico School, a comprehensive built between 1967 and 1970, was a notable example of Brutalist architecture. It was demolished in 2010.

• Aubrey Beardsley, illustrator – lived at 114 Cambridge Street
• Sir Winston Churchill, politician – lived at 33 Eccleston Square and Morpeth Terrace
• Joseph Conrad, Polish-born British novelist – lived at 17 Gillingham Street
• Sir Michael Costa
  , conductor and orchestra reformer – lived at 59 Eccleston Square
• William Morris 'Billy' Hughes, 7th Prime Minister of Australia – born at 7 Moreton Place
• Jomo Kenyatta, first president of Kenya – lived at 95 Cambridge Street^[14]
• Douglas Macmillan, founder of Cancer Relief – lived at 15 Ranelagh Road^[15]
• Swami Vivekananda, Hindu philosopher – lived briefly at 63 St George's Drive
• Major Walter Clopton Wingfield, father of lawn tennis – lived at 33 St George's Square

• Nickie Aiken, Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Cities of London and Westminster^[16]
• Laura Ashley, designer – 83 Cambridge Street
• Wilfrid Brambell, actor, star of Steptoe and Son – Denbigh Street^[17]
• Louisa Crow, Victorian novelist and poet
• James Crump, founder of St Aubyn's School, Woodford Green – 86 Cambridge Street
• Anthony Davis
  , comedian and broadcaster
• Charles De Gaulle
  , Free French leader and French president – Dolphin Square
• Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, 14th Duke of Hamilton, First man to fly over Mount Everest – born 71 Eccleston Square^{[citation needed]}
• Isadora Duncan, American dancer – 33 Warwick Square^[18]
• Bertha Jane Grundy, novelist, died in Eccleston Square on 5 September 1912.
• Steve Hackett, former Genesis guitarist
• William Hague, former British Foreign Secretary
• Basil Harwood, organist and composer
• Michael Howard, former Conservative Party leader
• Arthur Foord Hughes, artist^[19]
• Jeremy Hunt, politician
• Rhys Ifans, Welsh actor
• Luke Irvine-Capel, Archdeacon of Chichester, lived at 30 Warwick Square during his tenure as Vicar of St Gabriel's, Warwick Square (2008–2013).
• Catherine Johnson, creator of the musical Mamma Mia!
• James Lennox Kerr, Scottish socialist author
• Gavin MacFadyen (1940–2016), the director of WikiLeaks and founder of the Centre for Investigative Journalism (CIJ)
• Oswald Mosley, British Union of Fascists leader – Dolphin Square
• Ian Nairn, architectural critic – 14 Warwick Square
• Bill Nighy, actor
• Laurence Olivier, actor – 22 Lupus Street
• Barbara Pym, writer – 108 Cambridge Street
• Sheila Scott, aviator
• Tony Selby, actor
• Pamela Colman Smith, nicknamed Pixie, artist, illustrator, and writer
• Bram Stoker, author of Dracula – died at 26 St George's Square^[20]
• Gianluca Vialli, Italian football striker and manager
• Lucy Bethia Walford, Scottish-born novelist, died on 11 May 1915 – 17 Warwick Square.^[21]
• Herbert William Weekes, genre and animal painter – born in Pimlico ca. 1842
• Henry Weekes, RA, Victorian era sculptor – worked at No. 2, lived at No. 96, Eccleston Street^[22]
• Paul Weller, singer/songwriter, lived in a flat in Pimlico in the early 1980s
• Small Faces, 1960s band – 22 Westmoreland Terrace

Pimlico is the setting of the 1940 version of Gaslight.

Post

In G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy, Pimlico is used as an example of "a desperate thing." Arguing that things are not loved because they are great but become great because they are loved, he asserts that if merely approved of, Pimlico "will remain Pimlico, which would be awful," but if "loved with a transcendental tie and without any earthly reason" it "in a year or two might be fairer than Florence."^[23]

While still only partially built, the area is the abode of a criminal gang in Charles Palliser's 1989 novel, The Quincunx. They live in 'carcasses', part-built houses on which work has ceased owing to the drying-up of funds, due in turn to an involved conspiracy central to the book's convoluted plot.

Pimlico is served by

The area has a dozen docking stations for the Santander Cycles scheme.

Pimlico would be connected at Victoria to the proposed

The area is represented on Westminster City Council by the wards of Pimlico North and Pimlico South. These all form part of the Cities of London and Westminster parliamentary constituency, currently represented by MP Nickie Aiken, a Conservative. Of the six local councillors, three are Labour and three are Conservative. Pimlico is part of the West Central constituency on the London Assembly, which is represented by James Small-Edwards AM.

Further reading

• Pimlico Conservation Area Audit, Westminster City Council, April 2006

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Pimlico, Streets in the City of Westminster and Thomas Cubitt.