When Dolphin Square officially opened in 1936, it was never intended to be just another block of flats. Boasting some 1,200 upmarket units on a seven-and-a-half-acre site, it was the largest self-contained apartment complex in Europe – a city dwelling for the modern age.

Nor was there any pretence at classlessness. These were apartments for the affluent and the influential, the movers and shakers, the people who ran the country and made it tick. At times it has been called home by upwards of 100 sitting MPs and Lords. Its proximity to Westminster, Whitehall and the offices of Britain’s various intelligence agencies ensured a steady stream of such characters. 

You didn’t have to be a member of the super-rich set, but you needed a certain standing and a good income to secure a tenancy, along with great references and the swagger to get through a rigorous interview with the Square’s general manager – traditionally a retired military type. (There have only ever been tenants at Dolphin Square – it has never been possible to buy a property outright.)

Tragedies, suicides and murder

Dolphin Square has hosted representatives of every imaginable political hue. There have been spies and their spymasters, revolutionaries, diplomats and democrats, even armies in exile. Famous love stories have taken place there, along with monstrous betrayals and sex scandals that felled governments. There have been tragedies, suicides and murder, tales of extraordinary bravery and derring-do, not to mention an enormous dollop of British eccentricity.

For many centuries, this corner of London had been a stretch of non-descript marshland that came to border an array of desirable neighbourhoods – Chelsea, Knightsbridge, Hyde Park and St James’s Park. Then, in the 19th century, an ambitious builder, Thomas Cubitt, sculpted Pimlico into a residential neighbourhood catering for an overspill of the middle class gradually shifting west from the centre of London. The location of Dolphin Square was where Cubitt located his site works. After his death, the works were turned over to the Army which used it as a clothing depot, while Pimlico itself slowly fell to dilapidation.

By the 1930s, it was looking distinctly down at heel when American Fred French saw an opportunity to redevelop. However, the Great Depression got in his way and forced him to sell his interest to British firm Costains, which built the Square as it is today.