Who Dunnit? The London Home Of Legendary Crime Writer Hits The Market

The investment banker, with the air fryer in the home gym – while slightly less charming than Colonel Mustard in the billiard room with the candlestick, this crime writer’s former home is the ideal setting for a game of real-life Cluedo (just minus the actual murders, of course). While lesser known than murder mystery superstar Agatha Christie today, during the 1920s and 30s author Dorothy L Sayers was jointly recognised as one of the top crime writers of her time. And if you want the perfect spot to play out some Traitors style dinner parties of your own, then where better than her former Pimlico mansion? 

Inside The London Home Of Famed Crime Writer Dorothy L Sayers

Beauchamp Estates/Tony Murray Photography

Located in St George’s Square, the townhouse is believed to have been the site from which Dorothy L Sayers wrote her first crime novel, Whose Body?. As detailed by her biographer Nancy-Lou Patterson, in 1920 the 27-year-old Sayers began her Master’s degree at Oxford while renting the top-floor flat of this very London townhouse. While she only had a simple bed-sitting room plus kitchenette to call her own, she did enjoy a balcony which opened onto St George’s Square where she would often spend time reading, writing and plotting her page-turning novels. 

During her time in this Pimlico home, Sayers worked as a copywriter for a London advertising agency before eventually publishing her first novel in 1923. Later moving to a studio flat in Mecklenburgh Square in Bloomsbury, Patterson believes that Sayers’ two London flats inspired her 1930 crime novel Strong Poison, in which the character of Harriet Vane first stays in a bed-sitting room like Sayers’ St George’s Square home before moving into a small flat of her own in Doughty Street. 

Who Was Dorothy L Sayers?

Born in Oxford and raised in East Anglia, Sayers graduated from Oxford University with first class honours. First pursuing a copywriting career (in which she introduced the world to the famous Guiness toucan), she eventually achieved financial independence through her literary works. Her first work, Whose Body? is centred around the upper-class amateur sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey who became a recurring character in her stories. Through her works, Sayers was recognised for moving the genre of detective fiction away from pure puzzles to novels with rich characterisation and depth. She soon became recognised as one of the four ‘Queens of Crime’ in the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, alongside Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham and Ngaio Marsh. Following the success of her first novel Whose Body?, Sayers went on to write eleven crime novels and twenty-one short stories, with two of her novels adapted into BBC series. 

Later leaving her crime writing days behind her, from the mid 1930s onwards Sayers primarily wrote plays, mostly on religious themes which were performed in English cathedrals and broadcast by the BBC. While her radio dramatisation of the life of Jesus (The Man Born To Be King) initially stoked controversy, it was later recognised as one of her most important works. From the 1940s onwards, she dedicated herself to translating Dante’s Divine Comedy into colloquial English, with this work considered by Sayers to be her greatest achievement. 

Inside Her Pimlico Home

Built in 1843 by Grosvenor estate and royal architect Thomas Cubitt, the six storey white stucco Victorian townhouse has been recently refurbished, pairing period features with contemporary design and smart home technology. Boasting high ceilings, an entrance hall, three reception rooms, seven ensuite bedrooms, a kitchen and breakfast room, a 12-seat dining room, a study, a gym, two large terraces, a lift, garden patio and two step-out balconies, there is plenty of space for your very own murder mystery to play out – or room to stash a body. 

The property is on the market for £10m. Find out more at beauchamp.com