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MOVERS AND SHAKERS

What we now know as Pimlico (its name probably derived from that of the landlord of a popular hostelry over in Hoxton) was for many centuries a stretch of nondescript marshland that came to border an array of desirable neighbourhoods – Chelsea, Knightsbridge, Hyde Park and St James’s Park. The land was owned by the aristocratic Grosvenor family who, in the first half of the nineteenth century, partnered with an ambitious builder called Thomas Cubitt, a man of rare vision who would reshape several stretches of the city. It was he who first sculpted Pimlico into a residential neighbourhood catering for an overspill of the middling class gradually shifting west from the centre of London.

Cubitt located his Pimlico works on the site of what is now Dolphin Square, and it remained a hive of industry until his death in 1855. His son then reluctantly took over the family business and gradually the works were turned over to the army, who used it as a clothing depot. As the century rolled by, Cubitt’s original vision of a middle-class utopia gave way to something rather more down at heel. In 1902, Charles Booth noted in one of his famous surveys of the city that Pimlico still possessed ‘shabby gentility’ but showed signs of ‘decay’ and ‘grimy dilapidation’.1

Matters eventually came to a head in the 1930s. There were still a few pockets of middle-class domesticity but these tended to have faded, the residents of those neighbourhoods just about clinging on but generally not so well off to be able either to move to a more upmarket area or to ensure the good upkeep of their existing properties. Meanwhile, an increasing number of B&Bs and dosshouses had sprung up, while some streets were so ravaged by extreme poverty that they were little more than slums.

Yet there had been a vast upsurge in the number of people employed as civil servants in the city since the end of the nineteenth century, creating a demand for homes within easy reach of Westminster to suit the desires of this professional class. As things stood, there were simply not enough properties to meet the need. In addition, the army was preparing to relocate its clothing depot from its home in Cubitt’s old building works and were keen to stop paying the Grosvenor estate its not insignificant rent. Just as it had been a century earlier, the area was ripe for a shake-up. Cubitt’s attempt to turn Pimlico into a destination neighbourhood for London’s burgeoning middle class had only been a partial success. Now was a chance to finish the job.

The ‘new Cubitt’ for a while looked likely to be an American developer called Fred French. He purchased the freehold to the army depot site from Hugh Grosvenor, the Duke of Westminster, with an eye to creating a development modelled on successful projects he had overseen in the US. In particular, he wanted to replicate the success of his Tudor City development. Built in Manhattan in the 1920s, it was a complex that managed to meld the aspirations of the suburban middle classes to city skyscrapers. That was the dream for his Pimlico project, which was initially to be called Ormonde Court. But French soon ran up against a problem – the economic slump on both sides of the Atlantic was straining his company’s finances to near breaking point. Unable to secure the necessary finance, he began a desperate search for a building company to partner with.

Eventually, he alighted upon Costains, a family firm with a well-established reputation for speculative projects. They initially agreed to pool their talents but it was not long before French agreed to sell Costains his interest in the project. Costains then brought in architect Gordon Jeeves to revise the plans, while Oscar Faber was employed as consultant engineer. (Albert Costain, a director and brother of the company’s managing directo