Key Details

Overview

28 South Street is an 8,513 sq ft Grade II listed mansion in Mayfair, London W1.

Formerly the London residence of Dame Barbara Cartland, the childhood home of Countess Raine Spencer, and the birthplace of Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas Home.

The five-storey double-fronted mansion provides luxurious accommodation over lower ground, ground and three upper floors, with private terraces on the first, second and top fifth floors. Features include six bedrooms, six reception rooms and a spectacular wellness suite on the lower ground floor centred around a light-filled glazed atrium/courtyard comprising a swimming pool, cocktail bar, sauna and relaxation area.

Originally built in 1902-1903, the building has a grand Edwardian facade with Arts and Crafts style detailing. It was commissioned by a stockbroker and Liberal politician Sir Cuthbert Quilter (1841-1911), designed by Grosvenor Estate architect Detmar Blow, with internal detailing by Fernand Billerey.

Upon completion, Quilter let the house to Lord Dunglass, where his son, Sir Alec Douglas Home was born on the 2nd of July 1903. Alec would grow up to serve as the British Prime Minister.

Sir Cuthbert Quilter’s widow lived here from 1911 to 1920, and his son, Sir William Quilter, from 1929 until the property was bought in 1936 by renowned romance novelist and socialite Dame Barbara Cartland and her second husband Hugh McCorquodale.

Barbara Cartland was one of the best-selling authors of the 20th century, writing some 723 novels by her death in May 2000, mainly romantic fiction set in the Victorian or Edwardian period. Cartland lived at 28 South Street with her husband Hugh, their two sons Ian and Glen and her daughter Raine (Raine the offspring of her first marriage to Alexander McCorquodale, the cousin of her second husband).

During World War II Barbara Cartland based herself at 28 South Street and went to work for the War Office in Whitehall in various charitable capacities as well as working for the St John Ambulance Brigade for which she was later made a Commander of the Order of St John of Jerusalem for her services.

After World War II Barbara Cartland used 28 South Street as a place for entertaining family and friends including Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll, and Lord Mountbatten, uncle of Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh. It is also where she wrote her 1949 romance novel A Hazard of Hearts and her racy Guide to Married Life (1950), the latter banned in Ireland. Mayfair high society was scandalised in 1950 when author Georgette Heyer accused Cartland of plagiarism, alleging that A Hazard of Hearts was a copy of Heyer’s novel Friday’s Child (1944), but the case never came to court.

On the third floor of 28 South Street was the bedroom of Cartland’s daughter Raine (1929-2016), her childhood home. Raine is the subject of a new biography Three Times A Countess (2022) by Tina Gaudoin. It was at 28 South Street in 1947 that the 18-year-old Raine had her spectacular coming-of-age party and was named debutante of the year. The following year in July 1948 the Mayfair mansion hosted a reception for the marriage of Raine to her first husband the Hon. Gerald Humphrey Legge was to become the 9th Earl of Dartmouth. Raine’s second husband was the 8th Earl Spencer when she became Countess Raine Spencer and the stepmother of Lady Diana Spencer (later Diana, Princess of Wales).

Barbara Cartland lived at 28 South Street until late 1950 when she sold the mansion and used the proceeds to purchase Camfield Place in Hertfordshire, formerly the country home of Beatrix Potter, where Cartland lived until her death in 2000.

In 2022, the former London residence of Dame Barbara Cartland is relaunched to the market for sale through the local estate agent Wetherell.