The Secrets of Eaton Square

Windsor biographer Alexander Larman takes you behind the doors of Eaton Square, London's most sought-after address.
In the classic PBS series Upstairs, Downstairs, the aristocratic Bellamy family lived at the fictitious 165 Eaton Place, a grand home in one of London's most beautiful garden squares just minutes from Buckingham Palace. But, what really goes on behind the beautiful, polished doors of one of London's most sought-after addresses?
In The Secrets of Eaton Square: Sex, Scandal and Infamy on the Road to Buckingham Palace, Alexander Larman opens those doors wide to the scandalous social and political history of Eaton Square that begins in the eighteenth century and runs right up until today. With a cast of characters that includes everyone from Neville Chamberlain, Joachim von Ribbentrop (the lover of Wallis Simpson), Diana Mitford, Vivien Leigh, Margaret Thatcher, and even James Bond, Larman's book brings Eaton Square alive.
The list of luminaries and the powerful who lived on the square goes on and on today, from Andrew Lloyd Webber and Charles Saatchi to today's parade of Russian oligarchs whose money has given the area a new moniker: "Red Square." No matter what it is called, Eaton Square remains an iconic byword for moneyed luxury and glamorous discretion that, at times, is the playground of off-duty royals. Let Alexander Larman unlock the doors of Eaton Square for you. He has all the keys...

ALEXANDER LARMAN is a historian and journalist. He is the author of Blazing Star (2014), the life of Lord Rochester, and writes for the Observer, the Telegraph and the Guardian, as well as the New Statesman and the Times Literary Supplement.