A Summer Evening Plaque Walk: Austen, Langtry and Ava Gardner
Long July evenings are made for walking, and the quiet streets either side of Brompton Road hold more stories than most visitors realise. A writer, an actress, a film star, an architect and a singer all lived or worked within a short walk of each other here, and their plaques make a natural route. Allow an hour, start on Pont Street and finish near the Brompton Oratory as the light goes.
Pont Street: Lillie Langtry
Begin at 21 Pont Street, now The Cadogan Hotel, where a plaque marks the home of Lillie Langtry, the Jersey-born actress and society beauty who made her stage debut at the Haymarket in 1881. The house became a hotel in 1895. Look closely and you will spot an oddity: the plaque gives her year of birth as 1852, though she was born in 1853.
Hans Place: Jane Austen
Walk on to 23 Hans Place, a few minutes behind Harrods. Austen's brother Henry moved here in 1814, and she stayed with him, sometimes for months at a time, while working on her novels, taking breaks in the garden. It was here that the Prince Regent's librarian, the Reverend James Stanier Clarke, called on her, invited her to Carlton House and suggested she dedicate Emma, published in 1815, to the Prince. The Knightsbridge Partnership's Austen spotlight tells the full story.
Off Brompton Road: Elisabeth Welch and Wells Coates
Head back towards Brompton Road for Ovington Court, just off it, where Elisabeth Welch lived in Flat 1 from 1933. The New York-born singer and actor became the first Black broadcaster to have her own BBC radio series, Soft Lights and Sweet Music, in 1934, and stayed in London through the Blitz entertaining the troops. Her plaque was unveiled in 2012 by Bonnie Greer.
Nearby, at 18 Yeoman's Row, the Modernist architect Wells Coates turned a pied-à-terre into his studio-home in 1936 and worked there until 1956. Born in Tokyo in 1895, he designed the Isokon building in Belsize Park and Embassy Court in Brighton, and many of the built-in furnishings from this house were later given to the V&A. The Wells Coates spotlight covers his remarkable career, from pilot to engineer to designer.
Ennismore Gardens: Ava Gardner
Finish on the north side of Brompton Road, near the Oratory, at 34 Ennismore Gardens. Ava Gardner bought a first-floor flat here in 1972 and spent her final 18 years in it, with her housekeeper and her Welsh corgis, calling it her little London retreat. She often visited the Ennismore Arms, her local pub, and she died at the flat on 25 January 1990. The quiet square is a fitting place to end, a long way in spirit from the Hollywood studios that made her famous.
The whole route is flat and easy, and works best in the soft light between early evening and sunset. For more ideas, see our things to do guide.
Lead image: Lucho Payne via Flickr, CC BY 2.0.
