Dolphin Square

Dolphin Square is an estate of private flats with some ground floor business units near the River Thames in Pimlico, Westminster, London built between 1935 and 1937.

[3] An American firm, the Fred F. French Companies, bought the freehold for the site from the Duke with plans to build a large residential development, provisionally named Ormonde Court.

[3][8] Westminster City Council bought the lease of the block for £4.5 million in the mid-1960s, and subsequently sub-let it to the Dolphin Square Trust, an effective[clarification needed] housing association, which had been newly created for the purpose.

Until 21 January 1970, London Transport bus route 134 showed PIMLICO Dolphin Square as a destination and terminated in Chichester Street.

[11] In total, it was estimated that 200,000 tonnes of earth was moved, 125,000 tons of concrete used, 12 million bricks used on the external walls and 6,700 Crittal windows installed during construction.

Onsite facilities provided for residents when completed included shops, a children's centre and nursery, library and, in the basement, a garage for up to 300 cars.

[13] The 3.5 acres (1.4 ha) of communal gardens were designed by Richard Sudell, president of the Institute of Landscape Architects, and since 2018 are (unlike the building) Grade II listed.

Politicians who have lived in the development include Harold Wilson, David Steel, William Hague, Estelle Morris, Beverley Hughes, Michael Mates, John Langford-Holt and Iain Mills.

)[3] Other notable residents have included comedians Ben Lyon and Bud Flanagan, actors Peter Finch and Thorley Walters, writer Radclyffe Hall, former Lord Chief Justice Lord Goddard, journalist Norman Cliff, tennis writer Bud Collins, Anne, Princess Royal, and Profumo affair topless showgirls Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies.

[17] The Metropolitan Police Service opened an inquiry in November 2014 under Operation Fairbank into allegations that prominent MPs used the block of flats as a venue for child abuse.

[18] Carl Beech, then known publicly under the pseudonym "Nick", made false allegations against several prominent men, claiming that he was taken to Dolphin Square regularly as a young boy and abused.

[27] In Len Deighton's alternate history novel SS-GB, which is set in a German-occupied Great Britain during World War II, Dolphin Square is requisitioned for use as an interrogation centre.

[30] In British novelist Kate Atkinson's 2018 spy novel Transcription, MI5 runs a small counterespionage operation from Nelson House in Dolphin Square.