45 Squared 45) EATON SQUARE, SW1
Borough of Westminster, 500m×100m
I started this series with what I said was London's largest square but it wasn't, this is. Vincent Square was merely huge and square-ish, whereas Eaton Square is huger and not very square at all. At 500m long and 100m wide it's exceptionally oblong and takes over quarter of an hour to walk all the way round, I can confirm, because those who built it were trying to impress. It's so large there's room for an extra street to run down the centre, longways, leaving those around the edge living in a privileged oasis of relative calm. No wonder it's one of Britain's most expensive place to live, indeed in 2016 it officially topped the list.
What's now Belgravia was once an expanse of rural land called the Five Fields, stretching almost a mile from Knightsbridge towards the Thames. The Grosvenor Estate sought to build here in the 1820s, first around Belgrave Square before making an official start on Eaton Square in 1826. A long elegant square spreading either side of the King's Road was proposed, set back behind central gardens, and took just over 20 years to complete. The earliest properties are on the north side in brick and stucco, and are mostly the work of Thomas Cubitt. The south side was instead the responsibility of the builder Seth Smith and are rather stuccoier, often Italianate, but equally capacious in size. The landowner was later awarded the title Duke of Westminster, the current incumbent being the richest Briton under the age of 40, and all because his ancestors once inherited a patchwork of fields in precisely the right place.
Walk round Eaton Square and one of the main things you notice are the pillars, so many pillars, in tapering classical form supporting every porch. Each is painted in the official neutral shade the Grosvenor estate prescribes, specifically British Standard Colour BS Ref 08B15, which they describe as green-grey but I'd call posh magnolia. Painted on each in black is the number of the house, an ever-increasing sequence running clockwise from number 1 in the northeast corner to number 118 by the church. Front doors are to be painted high gloss black unless approved otherwise in writing.
I got lucky with a glimpse through one front door, spying a long central hallway and a high winding stair that looked classically original, at the rear of which a uniformed man in a bowler hat was fiddling with something on a table. But in some cases it's all an illusion, every space behind the facade having been knocked through to create themostostentatious of modern homes. It's not unheard of for multiple homes to have been combined if the owner wanted to create a particularly luxurious hideaway, should the address be more important than the original architecture. If you couldn't afford to install a mirrored marble swimming pool and steam room in your basement then Eaton Square probably isn't for you.
The accoutrements of wealth are otherwise discreetly displayed. Doorstep foliage is always perfectly trimmed. Christmas wreaths invariably feature curling orange slices, almost as if there's an approved florist you're supposed to buy them from. The roof of the porch creates a tiny balcony on which can be perched iron chairs or additional shrubbery. Personalised numberplates I spotted included L4 (on a Mercedes jeep), RR02 JSR (on a cab-like Rolls) and 36C (on a well-endowed sports car). Perhaps the ultimate status symbol is a security guard standing sentinel outside on the pavement, smiling as you pass but watching like a hawk lest you be intent on indecorous behaviour. Or maybe it's having your own blue plaque.
Eaton Square has had a ridiculous number of famous residents including Rex Harrison, Sarah Duchess of York, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Lord Lucan. Not everybody gets a plaque but one who does is Lord Boothby, a politician with an infamous penchant for the Kray Brothers, allegedly. Oscar-winning actress Vivien Leigh Lived at number 54, this after divorcing from Laurence Olivier and just before her untimely death. Austrian diplomat Klemens von Metternich, forced into exile after a revolution in 1848, only spent four months at number 44 but still somehow gets officially recognised. As does Stanley Baldwin who's one of two Prime Ministers who made Eaton Square their home post-Downing Street, the other being the less acclaimed Neville Chamberlain.
Only a couple of properties aren't residential, both on the northern flank. One is the Belgian Embassy, still housed in the same corner buildings as the Government in Exile in 1940. A plaque on the side of the building commemorates Belgians who signed up inside to fight alongside the Allies and died before the liberation of their country. Just down the terrace is the Bolivian Embassy, easily identifiable because it has two flags, one of which looks like a dazzling grid of rainbow-coloured tiles. This is the wiphala, a 7×7 square patchwork which officially represents the native peoples of the Andes, and don't say you never learn something while wandering around a really posh square.
Eaton Square contains not just one central garden but six, each divided from its neighbour by one of the three roads that cut across the middle. It says a lot for the scale of the space that two are designated dog gardens, lest residents should have to walk too far to exercise their pampered pooches. Most of the others are a mix of lawn and shrubbery for general relaxation (no ball games and absolutely no barbecues), carefully screened from non-keyholder passers-by. The finest is probably 'south central' which has raised beds, astrolabe sculptures and towering cycads, also a tumbling water feature like a shimmering curtain in front of a hemispherical metal fountain. Should you be feeling nosey this is also the garden the public are allowed into on Open Garden Squares weekend in June, although the tennis courts remain off-limits.
Meanwhile the wider world ploughs across Eaton Square on broad thoroughfares, ideally without noticing. Sloane Square isn't far away from one end, and Victoria Coach Station is so close that some National Express coaches overspill and park up in the middle, allowing drivers to nip out for a smoke and collective gossip. And finally there's St Peter's church at number 119, a neoclassical masterpiece contemporary with the first houses built in the square. It's burned down twice, initially in 1837 and then again in 1987 when a Protestant arsonist wrongly assumed it must be Catholic without checking first. It's still quite high church, all bells and smells and swishing around in cassocks, but that also means an exemplary musical tradition so if you fancy a good Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols then Sunday's is available to watch here.
Eaton Square is so large you could easily fit the last dozen squares I've visited inside it, and collectively so well off it could probably pay for them as well. It is I hope a fitting end to my year-long 45 Squares project, and now we're all square I can look forward to seeing what next year brings.
