500 Square Foot of History

“His bedroom and his bathroom looked out on a tiny court containing a sundial and a silversmith. Few people who walked down St James’s Street knew of the court’s existence.” – The Human Factor by Graham Greene

One November day, many years ago, I was walking back from a meeting near St James’s Park in London and spotted an intriguing passageway I’d never noticed before. Lined with dark panels, it appeared to lead to a little courtyard and the sign on the wall named it Pickering Place. Peering down the covered passage, what I glimpsed of the courtyard appeared secluded and private, so I carried on my way but, curiosity piqued, I looked it up on the train home.

As a teenager, my father had given me Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City to read, and, as an already-avid crime fiction fan, the idea of a varied and eccentric community investigating a murder immediately popped into my head. The idea recurred several times over the years, and I even spent a month in San Francisco in my twenties, staying in a Barbary Lane-style courtyard, exploring the city I’d read so much about, but the idea was transient and unfixed, and the exact way in which I could bring these people together in a UK setting eluded me.

Until the day I discovered Pickering Place. Described as the smallest residential square in London – and it really is small, about 500 square feet – it was rich with history. Sometimes, it only takes a word or a phrase to spark an idea for a writer, and ‘the smallest square in London’ was enough for me. The idea for a crime novel set in a London square immediately began to form, and that was before I read the wealth of history in this tiny place. 

Formerly part of Henry VIII’s real tennis courts, it was acquired by builder Thomas Stroud in 1731, who built many of the houses surrounding the square. By 1741 however, William Pickering, a coffee merchant, had taken ownership. He was son-in-law to Widow Bourne, the founder of Berry Bros. & Rudd Ltd, the historic wine merchants who have been operating next door on St James’s Street since 1698.

In the 18th century, Pickering Place became something of a ‘scene’ and, as a secluded, unseen corner of St James’s, attracted all sorts of unsavoury activity from the aristocratic society in the neighbourhood. It gained a reputation for gambling, bear-baiting, cock-fighting, bare-knuckle boxing, and even as a location for illegal duels. One of its most famous duellists was rumoured to be Beau Brummell, famous dandy and inventor of the cravat, whose statue stands in nearby Jermyn Street. It has even been suggested that the last duel in London was fought there, but since pistols were the weapon of choice for duellists by then, the limited square footage would make that unlikely. The words ‘fish’ and ‘barrel’ spring to mind.

The square appeared to clean up its act in the 19th century however, becoming home to the Texan Republic’s legation until Texas joined the United States in 1845, and in 1914 was put to use as a temporary recruitment and sign-up spot for The Royal Fusiliers. The historians at Berry Bros. & Rudd even discovered photographs in their archive from 1922 showing Pickering Place being used as a film set, the film’s title unknown but featuring two duelling, costumed swordsmen. A source of those ‘last duel’ rumours, perhaps. In the 1950s, writer Graham Greene lived there, in a flat above an oyster bar and below General Auchinleck, using the square as inspiration for the living quarters of Colonel Daintry in his novel, The Human Factor. 

Did you know London still had lamplighters? I didn’t, until I went back to Pickering Place to explore. I found that not only was the square truly tiny, it was also very beautiful, with Georgian architecture, iron railings, and an original, still-used Victorian gas lamp. My fictional Marchfield Square sprang fully to life for me that day, albeit on a larger plot and with fewer people, and the story of a special and quite improbable place in London was born.

Sadly, Pickering Place’s gas lamp has now been converted to LED but there are still over 250 left in the area, looked after by a devoted group of skilled engineers. The commitment of others to preserve and document our history also inspired the second book in the Marchfield Mysteries, Murder Like Clockwork, although setting the books in London has provided an embarrassment of riches in that respect.

While the idea for Marchfield Square appeared to download itself to my brain in a single moment – an eclectic residential community in the heart of London, overlooked by a wealthy, somewhat mysterious widow – the rest of the story came in snippets, inspired by the history of the square. The characters include a coffee addicted writer, a military man, and a retired film actor, all part of a community of found family hiding their secrets in the shadows… And then I asked the question: what would happen to that community if the wrong person moved in? 

When I finally sat down to write 10 Marchfield Square it was 2021. Even for me, that was a long time for an idea to percolate, but sometimes, the moment is just right. Publishing was rediscovering the joy of crime novels with heart and humour, and the book flowed easily, and I had a great time planting little references to Pickering Place in its pages.

One thing most writers have in common is our curiosity, our need to look up (and subsequently rabbit-hole) even the idlest of thoughts. And even if that research never makes it into a book, I sure none of us would have it any other way. 

For more in depth history about Pickering Place, do visit the sites of Berry Bros. and Rudd, The London Gasketeers, and The Paris Review.

Murder Like Clockwork by Nicola Whyte. (Bloomsbury Publishing)

An empty house that isn't empty. A victim who vanishes. An impossible crime? Every Thursday at midday Audrey Brooks cleans the Petrov house. Mr Petrov is never home - in fact he seems to use the house purely as storage for his impressive collection of antiques - but that doesn't affect the care with which Audrey mops, polishes, and carefully winds each of the dozens of beautiful clocks that decorate the tall, elegant, empty London mansion. Until the morning she finds a corpse in the back bedroom, the pristine walls and floor covered in blood, and flees the house in panic. Fifteen minutes later, the police arrive... and find nothing. No body. No blood. The only thing slightly out of the ordinary is the clock in that back bedroom, which is now running four minutes slow. With no victim, the police are convinced there was no murder, but Audrey knows better. A man has been killed, and if they won't do anything about it, she - and her annoying friend Lewis - will. Whodunnit is one thing, but this detective duo must also wrestle with when - and where on earth is the body? It's not long since they solved the murder of their neighbour, so they're not rookie sleuths, and at least this time the case has no connection to their home. Does it?

More information about Nicola Whyte and her books can be found on her website. She can also be found on Facebook. She can also be found on Instagram, X, Bluesky and Threads @nixawhy.