Fleming's House Burned Out

Asp9mm

Passing Fleming's house the other day in Victoria Square and I was saddened to see it had been utterly consumed by fire internally. Pretty grim as there had been little changed on the inside and outside since Fleming lived there. It has had a few owners since Anne and Ian lived there after they married. One couple, close friends of mine. The previous owners had refused to have a heritage plaque put up, so Ebury St got it, but after they went (they also removed Fleming's anchor door knocker), it was applied for again. Still hasn't been installed though. The door was original to the period still, but looking at the damage, it seems it was completely destroyed in the blaze.

It is in a beautiful little Square literally 60 seconds walk from Buckingham Palace, and about two minutes from Fleming's war time home in Ebury St. Considering how busy it is around there, that Square is quite charming, private and very quiet.

Number24

Sad. Just sad.

Thunderpussy

Sad indeed.

Dirty Punker

Oh come on, why do they keep on tarnishing the man's legacy?

How did the fire break out?

Asp9mm

There’s not much on this in the media. Even less that it was Fleming’s home. But this is what is left of his front door.

https://uknip.co.uk/2017/10/four-million-pound-property-on-posh-london-grosvenor-private-estate-left-gutted-by-fire-as-probe-is-launched/

Charmed & Dangerous

That’s very sad news indeed.

Sir Miles

Oh no

The Domino Effect

It actually did get a fair amount of publicity when it happened although the majority of reports failed to mention that Fleming had lived there (although anyone who'd ever passed by it would recognise it instantly as it's quite distinctive) Here's one that did mention that:

http://metro.co.uk/2017/10/30/duchesss-4000000-london-home-destroyed-by-fire-in-early-hours-of-the-morning-7037515/

That would be a dream home of mine. Gorgeous house in great area...and what a pedigree (apart from Michael Portillo!).

Agent Kino

How sad! Great landmark down.

Enjoying Death

Hopefully it was accidental and not arson.

With recent talk about Bond being a misogynistic rapist and the whole #MeToo movement, it sadly wouldn't surprise me that some kook, in an act of virtue signalling, would torch the home of the author of the character.

I'm probably wrong (and hope I am) but people and their psychotic behaviour today do not surprise me any longer.

Barbel

Terrible.

JTM

That's a damn shame. At least the top two floors only suffered 30% damage, they weren't gutted like the basement and first floor, so there's some interior left that can hopefully be used as a guide to rebuild the rest to it's former beauty. Still a massive loss

The Domino Effect

Enjoying Death wrote:

Hopefully it was accidental and not arson.

With recent talk about Bond being a misogynistic rapist and the whole #MeToo movement, it sadly wouldn't surprise me that some kook, in an act of virtue signalling, would torch the home of the author of the character.

I'm probably wrong (and hope I am) but people and their psychotic behaviour today do not surprise me any longer.

Not too far away on Ebury Street there is an English Heritage blue plaque stating that Fleming had lived at number 22. I'm pretty sure that if someone was targeting Fleming, that's the building they would go after. Few people realised that Fleming lived at the Victoria Square address before it was mentioned in some media reports after the fire.

Asp9mm

Yeah, Ebury St would have been the target if Fleming was being hit.

welshguy34

Very sad to hear.

Silhouette Man

Very sad news indeed. I just hope that they can get the damage repaired again. Heard about this on another Bond forum a while ago.

I'm wondering if this was the house Fleming lived in that used to be a temple and that was previously owned by Oswald Mosley? I have a feeling it's not as I think it was before he was married as he used to take girls back there and try to seduce them by offering them sausages and showing them pornographic playing cards. Well, if it worked for him(!)

The Domino Effect

That's the Ebury Street house that has the blue plaque on it. It's a very peculiar looking building, but Fleming liked it. The Victoria Square house that had the fire was the one that they had to have a dining table for their dinner parties specifically made for in order to fit in the peculiarly shaped room, if memory serves me correctly.

Silhouette Man

The Domino Effect wrote:

That's the Ebury Street house that has the blue plaque on it. It's a very peculiar looking building, but Fleming liked it. The Victoria Square house that had the fire was the one that they had to have a dining table for their dinner parties specifically made for in order to fit in the peculiarly shaped room, if memory serves me correctly.

Thank you, friend. I thought I was probably mistaken. Could anyone provide a picture of the ex-temple house? I'd love to see what it looks like, finally!

I see from the interesting Metro article linked above that this was the house where Fleming had his party after the premiere of the FRWL film in 1963, about which John Pearson wrote rather amusingly in his Fleming bio.

Asp9mm

Silhouette Man

Asp9mm wrote:

Thank you for that picture, Aspy. Much appreciated. It does indeed look like a temple and I like it very much. Nice to see the blue plaque too. -{

The Domino Effect

A few years ago I was in London and conducted my own Fleming walking tour. I walked past 3 or 4 of his old homes, his offices in Mitre Court, the Old Admiralty Building etc etc and of course, I had to have a martini in Duke's! I spent more time doing the research and printing out the maps than I did doing the actual walk, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.