Helen Fry
The Spy Sites of London, Part 1

Dr. Helen Fry | The Spy Sites of London, Part 1 | 03.04.24

Visuals displayed throughout the presentation.

- So welcome to part one of Spy Sites of London and we’re going to have a part two in a few weeks time. I hope you’re really going to enjoy this ‘cause I’m hoping it’ll be fun. So a bit of lighthearted fun and really discovering some of the hidden secrets behind iconic, well-known buildings of London, but perhaps also some of the ones that you’ve not heard of. What I think would be a nice idea, and I’ll probably mention this at the end of the lecture, would be if you email me via my website in the coming couple of weeks, if you’ve got a favourite spy site and say why, what it is and what happened, just briefly two or three sentences, and then maybe I’ll share some of those for fun towards the end of Spy Sites Part 2 in about three weeks time. Next slide, please. So we think of the whole kind of Bond, James Bond franchise, but you know so much is inspired by the streets of London and by some of the buildings. Can you name any spy sites of London? I’m sure you can. Some of them are very well-known, very iconic, some much more hidden as we’ll discover today. Next slide please. Iconic buildings.

Of course, these are the headquarters of the two main agencies, the main intelligence services in the UL, both of them based in London. The top building, of course, now made so famous because it’s appeared in the most recent three or four films of the James Bond franchise. And I absolutely love this building. I mean, it’s just so… I use that word iconic again. I mean, what a design. I love it. Be wonderful to go in there one day. But, of course, MI6 is so top secret that no one other than those that work there are allowed to go into inside the building. We’ll probably find it’s full of boring offices, but I absolutely love the design. And in the right-hand corner there, this is the entrance to MI5 to Thames House and that’s opposite on the river opposite MI6 building. And both of those buildings never been open to the general public. And so in a way, that kind of fuels the sense of mystery that surrounds those highly top secret organisations. And just as a reminder, MI6 in the UK is responsible for security largely abroad, although I understand some of the agents intelligence officers also liaise with MI5.

So there may well be a little bit of overlap with their work. MI5, the security service is based in London, but actually working on security by and large in this country in the UK historically. But I guess it may well take its work to international levels today. Next slide, please. And London has had that long association with spies as I’ve listed their double agents, traitors We’ll, in the next one, look at some of the haunts of the traitors of the Cold War. It’s a city with heroes and villains and in a way some of those shadowy games on the streets of the capitol, a chase of watching in the shadows of those spies. Next slide, please. And it all really started on a formal level with the foundation of the Secret Service Bureau in 1909. This is a picture of Sir Mansfield Cumming. And we’ll hear more about some of the buildings associated with him shortly. He became known as C, Cumming C, and he always signed his name in green ink. It was just one of those characteristics of him that he began. And many of you know, of course, that hereafter, the head of MI6 actually signs so far his name, we’ve not had a female head of MI6, his name in green ink and signs it C.

So as you’ve heard me say before, very exciting, when you discover in the national archives the occasional letter that C has sent to another department and signed in green ink, I don’t know, it’s always so exciting. But one of the photographs, I apologise, I forgot to put up next to him is Vernon Kell who became the co founder, if you like, of the Secret Service Bureau in 1909. So originally, what later became MI6 was run by Cumming on the left there. And Kell, who’s mysteriously in the shadows because I forgot to put him up, actually was involved in the home security. And then in 1916, it actually split, the agency split and it became what we know today, Secret Intelligence Service. Some people also like to call it MI6 and then MI5. So originally started out together. Next slide, please. At a time of spy fever and the war just in the run up to 1909 and throughout the 1900s until the outbreak of the First World War, this fear that there were literally hundreds, if not possibly thousands of German spies, the Kaiser had his spies infiltrated all across London and it did reflect a very real growing threat from Nazi Germany. Sorry, from Germany 'cause Nazi Germany in the Second World War, Freudian slipped there.

A growing threat from Germany, which was very, very real as we know because of the outbreak in First World War. But the exaggeration over literally how many German spies there were was later proved to be completely overrated. And actually, the threat wasn’t as bad in terms of spies operating on the streets of London as we would’ve imagined. So this Secret Service Bureau founded in 1909 is founded between the Boer War which ends in 1902 and the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. And in that period, Germany is seen to be a threat in various countries across the world. And the global newspaper, the global newspaper once wrote in 1907, “The streets of London swarm with Germans. Where do they go? They are comfortably dressed and well nourished.” So this was a sort of feeding into a kind of media frenzy, if you like, that civilians really believed and worried, as well as our newly formed intelligence service shortly that they really were embedded in our society and you could really not tell who they were. And so the intelligence agencies were there to keep us safe. Next slide, please.

So with that in mind, Vernon Kell, who I said became the first head of MI5, not sure if you’re aware, but he operated out of an office here in Buckingham Palace Road. Today, it’s the Rubens Hotel. I think it’s still a Rubens Hotel, very posh hotel. And one of these bedrooms was one of the offices used on the floor there by MI5. Next slide, please. But that street also, not sure if you’re aware, a group of girl guides who were known as the Secret Runners. There’s more research being done by historians actually on the role of girl guides in the formation in the early days of intelligence services. But fascinating, this little building 17 to 19 Buckingham Palace Road used to be the place from which a group of guides would act as runners for MI5. And so they will be like local couriers and observers. They were really quite young, some of them as young as 14. So between the ages of 14 and 18, they were paid and they were even given a food allowance.

Later in the 1920s, the Girl Guides were still working for MI5 and they were allowed to have food in the canteen. They were very well greeted. They did have to sign the Official Secrets Act. They were bound by secrecy. They couldn’t tell anyone actually what they were doing. And of course, that was their start within MI5. But I don’t know more about the Girl Guiding because there are very few files that reference them in the national archives at the moment. But I know historians are looking more into, it’s absolutely fascinating. But they did go on to this really important work as couriers and runners between various departments as a lot of paperwork has been shifted, a lot of intelligence and memos between different departments and the Girl Guides were used. I mean, utterly fascinating. Next slide, please.

And there was in 1914, a very real threat actually that was uncovered by MI5, a German plot by their various spies and the worst spies operational in London and in the UK, but not as many as we first feared. But the idea was to actually destroy our gold reserves, but it was foiled enough in time and MI5, if you like, saved the Bank of England. Next slide, please. So MI6 headquarters by 1916 was 2 Whitehall Court. There is a plaque there today. You can go and visit in Whitehall. This was Cummings’ office, C, the head of MI6. And it’s just fascinating. It’s so much like the early Bonds movies, if you like. But of course, the only way he could access this special office or anyone coming to see him was fire this mechanism of levers and pedals. And there was a false wall that then revealed a staircase to his office. This incredibly grand building that at the rear overlooks the Thames. It’s got fabulous views. And it didn’t only hold his office, the MI6 headquarters, but at that time it was also a hotel and it also had other offices but nobody knew.

This was a time when our intelligence services did not openly admit to existing. Of course, later, decades later, everybody knew about the existence of MI5 and MI6. But from them, there was only silence. But now both organisations or a little bit more public-facing, a little bit more bit open with what they’re prepared to reveal, perhaps not as open as some people would like, but we understand that needs a secrecy. But these buildings, 2 Whitehall Court was completely in the shadows, tiny office. MI6 used three floors in this building. Next slide, please. I’ve never been in side but fascinating. And there’s the blue plaque. So the first chief of the Secret Service lived and worked here. They’ve actually said from 1911, but my understanding is that the headquarters moved officially in 1916. So fabulous building. So going in, that’s the main entrance and then his secret office upstairs. But very glamorous, very elegant inside the part of the hotel. Next slide, please.

And of course, that kind of office and almost like a penthouse, this is it in contemporary times, beautiful penthouse. It’s actually not only what the headquarters of MI6, but, of course, it does inspire some of the scenes in James Bond because Cumming is the inspiration for M in the movies. Now, this flat went on the market just two or three years ago for 5.5 million pound, probably one of the most expensive in that heart of London for per square metre. And as I said, it spans three floors owned formally by the government, by the Secret Service and now has that blue plaque. So as well as being occupied by the Secret Service actually had his own little living area there. And those ease are still… They bear the reinforcement of the flaws were protected from Zeppelin raids in the First World War.

So this had to be reinforced in its day for the First World War. And I guess it’s a fitting place, isn’t it, that’s of to the secrecy of MI6? And, of course, it was… Oh I’m just thinking of his name. Oh, it’s gone. Oh my goodness. The last James Bond, it’ll come to me in that senior moment, Daniel Craig in “No Time to Die.” And there is a scene of him sort of running with… I think it’s the Aston Martin in front of him, a silver Aston Martin. And he’s sort of running in front of it and there’s a cameo shot of 2 Whitehall Court. It’s a kind of nod. Most people probably never notice that that’s what it was. But it’s a nod to this really important building in the MI6 history. And then it has this sort of huge 53-foot terrace that overlooks the whole of the Thames with fabulous views across London.

But it was that kind of very secret world going on up there whilst everything’s going on in Whitehall below. Next slide, please. But of course, that area just up from Trafalgar Square, there’s 2 Whitehall Court in Whitehall, not far from horse guards parade from the centre half, but just up you have Trafalgar Square, And if you walk along the left, you’ve got Pall Mall. And this today is home to a lot of our posh private members clubs, the RAC Club, the Royal Automobile Club, RAC is its shortened club in Pall Mall. And even today, as you can see from the image below, they still have a classic car, a really expensive car that they have to bring in very careful slopes, opening the doors, very careful doors are widened but they actually have a rotation of these incredible cars. I think people loan them for a short time on display in the club. And it’s kind of got that James Bond type feel. But these clubs really were in the old days recruiting ground for the intelligence services. Next slide, please.

And one of the other ones famously the Athenaeum Club. Again, this beautiful building just along from the RAC club. Some of you may or may not have had chance to go in any of these clubs, but beautiful inside. Of course, traditionally, only with a male membership, but now most of them having omitted women as well. Next slide, please. So it kind of adds, doesn’t it, to that whole sort of mystery? The Travellers Club, I’m not sure how many of you know, 106 Pall Mall is also one of those clubs where somebody could be recruited to the intelligent services in the early days. Next slide, please. And another one, the Reform Club. Beautiful building, another one, just stunning inside these layers of marble floors with the Baroque incredible architecture. This is the first floor. And there’s seating around the edge where you can sit and have a coffee. Well, you can’t unless you’re a member.

But there are scenes of some of the spies, some of the Cambridge spies, I believe, just sort of sitting there meeting someone, all that kind of secrecy and nobody really knowing what’s being said. So these sumptuous luxury places do have a history and connection to our intelligence services. Next slide, please. And not so far away, the Admiralty Building and Admiralty Arch as you can see there. Another just sort of palatial glorious building, the Admiralty also known as the Citadel. And this house, the Naval Intelligence Division and not much is really known in the public domain about naval intelligence, but they’re at the heart of some of the most famous spy stories in our history. Mansfield Cumming, that first head of MI6, of course, was a naval intelligence officer, you probably picked that up. Kell was an army intelligence officer. But yeah, there’s a long tradition of the naval intelligence with our secret service, Cumming being the first head and originally of naval intelligence. Next slide, please.

And famously, in the First World War, that building that we’ve just seen in the Admiralty had a room called Room 40. And this was where a lot of the early code breaking was done, work on cyphers. And this section at one point actually had captured the German Naval code book and they’d actually found this in the pocket of a dead German officer on the famous battleship Magdeburg. And it was actually decoded in a room, in Room 40. It’s just famous. Why it’s called Room 40 is probably because it did have Room 40 on it. But it was in the basement is my understanding, along with another very well known room, Room 29, that did a lot of secret work in the Second World War. So this is sort of hidden part of the intelligence world that deep in the Admiralty, there were these rooms in First World War and Second World War. And they were incredibly challenging conditions for the men and the women who worked there often, very low ceilings, cramps you can think of, with the tight writers clashing away and the buzz and the work and also smoke-filled ‘cause in those days, most people smoked, most of the offices and the men and women smoked. And so they could barely see each other in these quite small rooms actually in the basement of the Admiralty.

But this was sort of top secret area. Next slide, please. And this, of course, was the famous operation around what’s called the Zimmerman Telegram. Again, I’m not sure if you’ve heard of this, but I’ve put an image up on the screen of this famous telegram. And this was intercepted. It went on to become and was said to be one of the earliest and most important pieces of intelligence that we gained in the First World War because we discovered and we decoded that Germany offered for Mexico to come in and join the war as an ally of Germany. And at this time, up until 1917, America had taken a rather isolationist view, much as in the early part of the Second World War. And it took a really significant spark, if you like, to bring America into both world wars. And interestingly, what brought America into the First World War in 1917 on the side of the allies was this Zimmerman telegram. And so that’s why it was hugely significant. Historians will argue that without the help of the Americans in World War I, it wouldn’t have been possible to have turned the tide and won that war.

In the Second World War, of course, it was the bombing of Pearl Harbour on 7th of December, 1941 that brought America into the war. America had been resisting coming into another world’s war. So very, very interesting that this telegram was what brought America into the war in 1917. And it was decrypted in that basement in the Admiralty. Next slide, please. And the Admiralty had another secret room. This was in the Second World War, Room 39. It’s almost like we’re going backwards. Room 40 in the First World War, Room 39 in the Second World War. These were never available for the public to come and visit. I don’t know any historian who’s been lucky enough to go into the Admiralty to see these very historic rooms. But one of those key figures who worked out of Room 39, you can see him there on the left was Ian Fleming himself. Ian Fleming was the right hand man, the personal assistant to the head of naval intelligence in the early part of the Second World War is a man called Admiral John Godfrey.

Later, it was Rushbrooke. So he had various heads of naval intelligence, but, of course, Fleming in the Second World War in the Admiralty, that’s where he was based. And he seems to have been involved in so many of the espionage operations of the Second World War. I keep finding him popping up in all sorts of areas of my research. But again, you can see the picture at the bottom of the screen there, very ornate, glamorous rooms, beautiful rooms, of course, also fabulous paintings on the walls. And this was where the hub in the Second World War of the intelligence took place. As I said, Room 29, you have women, the tele princesses as they were called, secret ladies decoding, doing the cypher work that would feed in later to Bletchley Park. And then the top image is a famous image you may have seen before.

This is a team in the middle, seated in the middle is Ewen Montagu. And Ewen Montagu headed up Section 17M. And this was a secret section. This is a room in the basement of the Admiralty. As you can see, it is quite claustrophobic, very small area for the men and women to work, but this is where they planned and executed Operation Mincemeat. Famous film with Colin Firth recently. But it was essentially to float a dead body off the coast of Spain in 1943 with fake invasion plans strapped to his wrist. It was a briefcase strapped to his wrist and the body was floated out from a submarine. And we didn’t know if it would actually work, but it did. But that whole fabulous operation, quite glamorous in many ways and that we were able to pull off this deception, huge deception. The Germans thought the invasion was going to be nearer to Greece than Sicily and it meant that we could deceive them.

We knew if we could deceive them then, perhaps we could do another deception very similar of albeit slightly different narrative ahead of D-Day. And, of course, that’s exactly what happened. So iconic operation. Operation Mincemeat actually took place in the room that you can see on your screen. Next slide, please. But then there are some more less known places. And I find some of these really fascinating. A figure that some of you may well not have heard of, Merlin Minshall, and his links to Melbury Road, which is a road around Kensington and Chelsea. Worth walking down if you are ever in that area. And he was one of Room 40’s codebreakers in the First World War. So he was busy with that. But he keeps his contacts with Ian Fleming. He’s working with Ian Fleming in the 1930s. Ian Fleming was recruited in Austria or certainly trained in Kitzbühel in Austria in the 1930s.

And he actually works in the 1930s with Minshall. Minshall’s mother is also already working for British intelligence and their connection leads to a very interesting property. Next slide, please. Don’t know if you’ve seen this. Look at this. This is wonderful. Look at this, the Tower House in Melbury Road. And this will become, for a while, a headquarters for MI5. I just love that. Look at that turret. I don’t know that it’s got any stories of being haunted, but I don’t know, maybe some of you know that it is. Maybe some of you have actually walked past it. Next slide, please. So Minshall was typically something like you could easily get out a James Bond novel. I mean, nobody’s actually suggested that he’s the inspiration behind James Bond, but he kind of has that imagery that we’ve associated with the Bond’s gung ho agent. He was an MI6 intelligence officer. He had that desire for adventure as I’ve listed there.

He’d actually encountered a female German agent whilst travelling on the Danube at one point. And she tried to poison him. He’d had lots of lovers, four marriages, and, of course, he loved anything to do with speed. And he’d competed twice in the Monte Carlo rally at a race that he won in Italy in 1937 in which he was presented with his award by Mussolini. It was a very interesting character. Next slide, please. And he’s astonishingly the first person to cross the Sahara Desert on a motorcycle. I love this. It’s just hints of “Lawrence of Arabia,” isn’t it? These kind of characters, these mavericks. And it’s also said that at one point, and I believe it was in the 1930s, he actually met Hermann Goering who, of course, was head of the German Air Force.

But in that inter-war period between the First World War and Second World War, he is working alongside Fleming. It’s not clear whether he’s the exact kind of intelligence work he’s possibly doing, but with the outbreak of another war, he’s back in naval intelligence again and he is reenlisted in 1940. And this house, Tower House was actually his family home. It had been since the 1920s. So on the surface, it looks like it masks as a family home, which it had been, but it does have this very interesting history and history of houses around it as we’re now about to discover. Next slide, please. So Melbury Road. Well, interestingly, number one was officially where Mansfield Cumming, the first head of MI6, died whilst in office. His secretary actually discovered him. He just sort of slumped in his chair. I guess, he died doing the work that he loved.

And Tower House, actually, when it was refurbished in 2013, the owners actually put it back to its original colours and it originally had a green door. So you do wonder whether Mansfield had deliberately had this painted green because as I said earlier, it was arguably his favourite colour. And as I said earlier, he signed in green ink. Be interesting, actually, to go back to Melbury Road, I’m assuming I think it is still a green door, the only green door in the street. Next slide, please. But the road was incredibly interesting even in itself. And that whole road was full of artists and illustrators. And I’ve given you some examples there. The poet Wilfred Owen; William Morris, famous textile designer; and the novelist, Valentine Prinsep; all living in this road. Excuse the typo next, but 1972 to '79, King of the Zulus lived at number 6 Melbury Road. Next slide. But reconstructing the history of the road is actually quite tricky today because it’s been renumbered.

So the former headquarters of MI6, which is now the green door, is number one was actually at number 9 to 11 Melbury Road. So the street has actually been renamed. But there’s another interesting character who lived in Melbury Road. Next slide, please. At 22 Melbury Road, you recognise this guy? Of course, the famous conductor/composer, Benjamin Britten. Next slide, please. So he’s very controversial in the Second World War. He’s a conscientious objector, a pacifist. And MI5 were obviously very concerned about conscientious objectors. They were, of course, not well treated in the First World War. Things had changed by the Second World War. But MI5 was following Benjamin Britten. And in his file said that he was a man of communist appearance.

Now, I’m not sure whether he was ever a serious communist, but MI5 was concerned because of his travel. And it is said that MI6 also opened a secret file on him because, of course, Benjamin Britten did travel abroad and they were keeping an eye on him to see if he was actually a security threat to Britten. Absolutely fascinating. One of our most famous conductors of well-loved musicians actually suspected of being a possible Soviet spy, even certainly communist sympathiser. So there’s a lot we don’t know about him in that respect. But we do know that he had actually been to school with two notorious traitors of the Cold War, recruited by Russia before then, but Burgess and Maclean, who famously defected in 1951 to Russia to then USSR.

And in 1963, really interesting that Benjamin Britten actually visited Guy Burgess whilst Britten was doing a concert tour of the USSR. So whether they met schoolmates, whether it was because Benjamin Britten had communist sympathies, perhaps there’s more to come out later if the MI5 full file ever declassified. Next slide, please. Ah, one of the most famous buildings before the current MI6 headquarters. The building smack bang in the middle there in the rear was where MI6 moved. The Secret Intelligent Service moved in 1926. This is 54 Broadway Buildings. It’s right there by St. James’s tube Station. Those streets kind of… Maybe it’s because we know the headquarters was around there, but it feels like an area of historic spies and espionage and it’s not so far from… Literally, it’s around the corner from St. Ermin’s Hotel, very spy-centered hotel historically. I’ve come to that another time. Next slide, please.

But 54 Broadway Building was really interesting because this was where the second head of MI6 Hugh Sinclair had his office and he actually instigated a plaque because, as you remember, it’s so top secretive this time. But you had to mask actually what it was. So he thought it’d be a good idea to put up this sort of brass plaque, which said “Minimax Fire Extinguisher Company.” I guess you could have thought of a shorter name, but it’s fabulous because all the black cabbies, the black taxi drivers, the black cars in London were fascinated. They were just pull up and, of course, they knew that it was something really, really secret. And they chalked on the pavement at one point this way to the British Secret Service Office. But whether anyone outside of their circle really realised that actually that was the heart of the Secret Intelligence Service for so long until it moved to its… I call it James Bond style building at Vauxhall Cross across the Thames there. Next slide, please. But this building had a number of secrets.

Of course, it did. And because of the interest, it did come under a scrutiny by some of the other spies as well, by German spies in fact. And this is a photograph that was managed to be taken of an unnamed seller. And he pretended, this German spy pretended to be blind and selling matchsticks. And that was quite a common scene, particularly after the First World War and late in the interwar years. And so he would stand out at later, he would stand outside near the tube station, right opposite Broadway Buildings. So if you go back one slide, please. We can just see… One more back, sorry. Yeah, if you see here, so on the left there around there is the entrance to St. James’s tube station. Standing there, the building’s been renovated but looking opposite, it is perfect view to see who’s coming and going. Could we wind on two, please? So he was stood there and, of course, eventually, he was picked up because he was spotted. I’m not quite sure how they finally realised that he wasn’t actually blind, but that he masked as this match seller, matchstick seller.

And in fact, actually posts a German spy, very clever. Next slide, please. But, of course, Broadway Buildings had another secret and tucked away is Queen Anne’s gate. And at number 21 was where Hugh Sinclair, the second head of MI6, had his apartment. And this is a very quiet, beautiful street, but nobody would suspect that there was anything, anything to do with espionage at 21 Queen Anne’s gate. To mask his comings and goings, the builders knocked a corridor between 54 Broadway Buildings, the MI6 headquarters, Secret Intelligence Centre of Service Headquarters and his actual private apartment. Next slide, please. And so then MI6 historically had taken over a whole area in this into war period into the second World war of Queen Anne’s gate. And it became known colloquially as Intelligence Square. And it’s also there at the same building.

So on the fourth floor, you have the apartment of the second head of MI6. And my understanding again is it was strange access. I think there was this one talk of one of the chaps that was recruited, waited for his interview in the bathroom and then suddenly, one of the sort of cupboard doors sort of opens and it opens into this sort of corridor that led to the office. So all this mystique, no wonder Ian Fleming had his ideas when he is moving in and out of this world. He hasn’t created this. He’s drawn on that very early of, okay, he’s exaggerated, he’s drawn on that very early world. And the first floor of this building of 21 Queen Anne’s gate where the head of MI6 had his private apartment was the passport control office that oversaw a lot of security relating to passports and visas. And this was headed by the deputy head of MI6, Claude Dansey, a figure that I still find so fascinating.

But it was also at Queen Anne’s gate, the first government cypher school actually moved before government code and cypher school moved before it went out to Bletchley Park. Bletchley Park was purchased in the summer of 1938, that little shooting party arrives and then the war doesn’t really break out so they sort of go away again because the shooting party are actually code break. Those are going to be doing the code-breaking work. And, of course, Bletchley Park opens proper at the outbreak of war in September, 1939. But before that, the coding cypher school, the precursor to Bletchley Park was actually right there in the heart of St. James’ in Queen Anne’s gate. Next slide, please. And of that building, there were very few descriptions that survive of those headquarters, but famously double agent of the 20th century, Kim Philby, who defected to Moscow in 1963, he actually describes it in his memoirs and says MI6 headquarters was dingy, one that hit a warren of wooden partitions and was served by an ancient lift.

So I guess that’s about all we’re going to know about that kind of secret world. But again, my understanding is it was a world of offices partitioned with the wooden partitions, just a series of corridors of offices. Nobody really knew what each section was doing. Next slide, please. But Queen Anne’s gate at number 4, there was a medical practise which actually, because it was in that area, started to serve some of those intelligence officers and agents that had needed some kind of what today we would call it counselling, but they might have some physical injuries from their operations, operations abroad is what I’m meaning, or they might also have what I’ve termed their psychological injuries. And so there was this hub where their needs were catered for in one of the medical practises that was in Queen Anne’s gate. Next slide, please.

So we talked about the head of MI6 operating from 54 Broadway Buildings, masking as the fire extinguisher company, but there were a number of buildings across London that had what I’ve termed their spy fronts. They were companies. 24 Maple Street off Tottenham Court Road was a Menoline Limited business. And this was completely fictitious. It was a fake business that had been created by Claude Dansey, as I said, the deputy head of MI6. And he ran his subunit, if you like. There’s an organisation which he created called the Z Organisation. And his stories are still trying to work out exactly what this organisation was, but it functioned largely until around 1940, it’s believed.

And it basically oversaw a lot of the offices, intelligence offices undercover in the British passport control offices like Frank Foley, Thomas Kendrick. And so it’s from here that Claude Dansey said to have run this Z organisation, which if MI6 had ever been compromised and had gone down, then this was supposed to have taken over. But it’s still very much shrouded in a lot of mystery. And then Abbey House and Victoria Street, this was the Albany Trust allegedly. And this was where some of the interviews took place where agents were recruited. Next slide, please. And then there were a number of others, Geoffrey Duveen & Co. This was for international export of fine art. Sichel & Sons were wine, shipping wine across the world. Lammin Tours of a holiday firm. London Films. Alexander Korda, we now know Hungarian-Jewish roots.

He was actually working for the Secret Intelligence Services and their offices had some kind of secret work connected to them. Next slide, please. And we can’t talk about the secret world without the area around Savile Row, around Mayfair. I’ve labelled it haircuts, suits, perfumes, and cigars. So Geo F. Trumper, gentleman’s barbers and perfumers, that was a favourite haunt of Ian Fleming. He used to go there. It had opened in Mayfair, Curzon Street in the 1870s. And they’d actually named their number of their scents after military men. I’m not sure if you knew that. It was quite interesting. Astor, of course, after Lord Astor, Wellington after the Duke of Wellington, Curzon and Marlborough. Next slide, please. But, of course, they were important as well in what I mentioned earlier, that Operation Mincemeat, that deception because MI6 had to get a body. And interestingly, a pathologist, Sir Bernard Spilsbury and they did use a mortuary over near St. Pancras.

But Sir Bernard Spilsbury was very famous pathologist. And he interestingly worked or lived in Hampstead at 18. Again, sorry about the typo. 18-20 Frognal. Think I’m going to search that out next time. He actually used the body of 43-year-old Michael Glyndwr who became Major Martin. That was his code name. This was the body of a vagrant, a homeless man who had accidentally taken some rat poison. We think is accidental rather than suicide. And so 43 years old, he died and his body was in the mortuary at St. Pancras and this was released. And this body was transported from hospital in Fulham originally where he died to a secret location in Hackney. And the body was prepared and the uniform and everything, all the bits that were going to be put on him. Next slide, please. And items were slipped into the pockets of the dead body. None other prepared.

My understanding is by Gieves & Hawkes, a very famous tailors there in Savile Row. And this had a receipt for a shirt. So everything really pointed to Major Martin being a high class officer. So these receipts that were actually faked and he was allegedly had bought a new shirt shortly before he died, shortly before his body was floated off the coast of Spain from Gieves & Hawkes. I love this. But all these different aspects coming together and what a history behind some of our best known name London. Next slide. Interesting. Gieves & Hawkes was a famous tailors that was actually the love of, next slide please, Guy Burgess. We got next slide, please. Yeah. So he visited them shortly before his defection, I guess, to get a suit that would last because, of course…

Well, interestingly, he accompanied Maclean to the port to go across… They went out at night on a leisure cruiser. They went on a tourist cruiser overnight. It said that Burgess hadn’t expected to defect. He just thought he was dropping Maclean off and Maclean turned to him and said, “No, no, you are coming too,” still surrounding Guy Burgess. But he used to like his tailor in Savile Row. Next slide, please. Dolphin Square in Pimlico. Somebody mentioned this place to me recently, somebody on lockdown. Of course, they asked me about it. It’s still, I guess, quite shrouded in mystery. But this has allegedly had decades of espionage from the Second World War into the Cold War. Next slide, please. And it was here that MI5 had some of its offices for a while out of which they ran their double cross with the chap.

You can see in the top of the screen there, Maxwell Knight. Maxwell Knight, who was quite often referred to as M, worked for MI5. He was a little bit , took him many ways and that there are photographs of him with a parrot on his shoulder. He loved his birds. He had exotic creatures in his flat. And he also liked fast cars. And he what were known as Knight’s Black. They were double agents and, of course, they needed a number of safe houses, of apartments out of which these double agents could operate. And there are a series of apartments in what is known as Dolphin Square. If you’ve ever been there, you’ll know that one block is called Collingwood and another one is called Hood. And all that’s within the area of Dolphin Square.

But to master the fact that he’s working for a really top secret organisation, he doesn’t put the flat in his own name because there can’t be any trace. If he’s operating with double agents out of this flat, perhaps briefing them, giving them documentation, then there can be no trace back to him. So it was actually registered in his wife’s name. But it was said that the German intelligence services had actually sussed out about Dolphin Square and that it was watched occasionally. I haven’t independently verified that from my own research. But the couple in the bottom there, you may recognise the chap, he is Garbo, double agent Garbo who transmitted from a house in Hendon, actually head of D-Day fed deceptions to the Germans and his wife. Not quite sure. There’s a lot of mystery still surrounding his wife as to whether they were working almost as a couple, whether she knew.

She probably did actually know about his work. But they’re a very, very interesting couple. Next slide, please. And Hood, the Hood Apartments actually held offices, as well as one of MI5 safe houses in that period. And number 10 Collingwood House was the one of the key operations of briefing rooms. So there’s a vast complex, but just a few rooms there and this vast complex that we use for these secret operations. And my understanding is we’re never discovered until, of course, these kind of things were declassified international archives decades later. Next slide, please. But Maxwell Knight, he’s a very interesting character. As I said, he’s a bit sort of off the wall. He played drums once at the Hammersmith Palais de Danse. This was now 242 Shepherds Bush Road. But that building I discovered had its own secret. It had a large basement with a workforce that was building tanks right in the heart there of Hammersmith. Incredible, absolutely incredible. Next slide, please.

But Dolphin Square becomes infamous in the 1960s because who had an apartment there? None other than Christine Keeler. She’s the one that had the affair with John Profumo, Secretary of State for Defence. And their affair nearly brought down the government. I mean, it led ultimately to Harold Macmillan’s resignation. So she was friendly with the Soviet spy Yevgeny Ivanov and this sort of liaison. Nobody really knows how far it went, whether she really slept with him, she probably did. And was their affair… Who was she working for? It was believed or there was concern that this was been orchestrated like honey trap by the Russians. So there’s so much more, of course, that we don’t yet know about that whole affair. But yeah, she had one of her apartments for a while in Dolphin Square. And there were other connections to the Cold War as well around Christine Keeler and the Profumo affair. Next slide, please.

I give you just a little sort of taste of the Location 23, as it was known, that was its code name was none other than the BT Communication tower, British Telecom Communication Tower right there in the heart of London. Still there today. And often when there are a national announcements as a message that goes around the BT Tower, but it was known in the secret world as Location 23. So what happened at location 23? Next slide, please. The 1970s, it has a very interesting history because it was here and we know this ‘cause this information has been declassified now, that both MI5 and MI6 operated the communication centre here. I believe now it’s largely defunct. But what were they doing? I think at the moment, the best we can say is that they were probably from here intercepting what was then the KGB, the Russian Intelligence Services. They were actually intercepting potentially signals from there.

But the work here, as I’ve put, was so top secret that when there was a court case in 1978 about secret transmitting and receiving facilities, the judge ruled this tower tower, BT Tower could only be referred to as Location 23. So nobody knew then this whole furore over some secret transmission centre, but nobody knew that Location 23 was the BT Tower. And then today, my last site that I want to show you, next slide please, is a little outside the central London. But of interest for those of you who lived around North London, Dollis Hill. Dollis had a secret bunker and it was about 35 feet under the former Post Office Research Centre. They has a Jewish school next to it, interestingly. The bunker’s still there. It’s disused, it’s sealed off. The building’s on the top, the Post Office Research Centre where a lot of top secret research went on, particularly during the Second World War.

This is where Tommy Flowers developed his Colossus machine, highly than top secret code named the Paddock, the bunker underneath. But the buildings above no longer exist that this has been renovated and rebuilt, so rebuilt and renovated. So there are now a series of private flats above, but the bunker still remains below. Next slide, please. And all that remains is this tiny entrance. There we go, with a door open then. And often it’s flooded, so it has to be constantly pumped out. So the water is often in there, but there is labyrinth, at least two stories with around 40, 43 rooms. Next slide, please. And this was going to be the out of London offices, cabinet offices during the Second World War. And it could withstand a bomb, a fire hazard because it withstand heck of a lot. And Winston Churchill only came down here once on the 3rd of October, 1944, a cabinet meeting.

Sort of practise it out, if you like. He absolutely hated it. It pretty much looks like this today. I was lucky enough a number of years ago on a Heritage Day. It’s open just maybe once every now and again, every few years on a Heritage Day. So do watch out for that. But it’s fascinating, both like this, it is derelict, but this would’ve been and was one of our secret bunkers outside London. So I hope you’ve enjoyed some of those gems today. Of course, there are in many ways an infinite number of spy sites across London, as there are in a number of cities and places across the world and across the UK. I could have chosen any number, but I hope you’ve enjoyed some of the famous ones, some of the quirky ones. And I look forward to sharing more with you in two to three weeks time for part two.

And as I said at the beginning, please do email me via my website just with a short paragraph, nothing too much. And if you want to just say where it is and why it’s your favourite spice site, and yeah, maybe I’ll pick three or four of the great ones of those and your comments and I’ll use them towards the end of the session next time. I think that might be a fun thing to do. So thank you for joining me today. And if you’re out and about round London, just think, have a look, some of those spy sites we’ve covered today. And I think they’re just so inspiring and enjoy.