White stucco terraces surround three garden squares, with Dolphin Square's red brick blocks along the river.
What Pimlico looks like
The streets run as a flat grid around three garden squares, laid out in the 1820s and 1830s. Terraces of white stucco stand four and five storeys, with columned porches at the pavement and cast iron balconies repeating along the first floor windows from one house to the next.
opens south toward the river, its garden fenced behind railings between two matching rows. repeats the same white stucco terraces a few streets north, with a cobbled mews of former coach houses reached off Warwick Place North behind them. St Gabriel's church spire rises over the brick corner of , the third of the three gardens.
Along the river the grid stops at Dolphin Square, nine storeys of red brick built in the 1930s around its own courtyard, with further west in slab blocks from the 1950s and 1960s. Both stand apart from the squares in height and material.
Parked cars line the kerb on beneath the Churchill Gardens blocks. A blue painted pub keeps its Victorian corner front across from Pimlico's Underground station, its roundel lit red after dark against the white stucco terrace opposite.
Shot in Pimlico
For The Sorcerers in 1967, the production sent its hypnotised lead to Dolphin Square for a midnight swim. The pool is inside the same nine storey brick blocks that wrap the square's private courtyard.
The Sorcerers, 1967
Roscoe is hypnotised into a midnight swim at the pool inside Dolphin Square, and the production filmed the scene in the real complex. The nine storey brick blocks wrap the square's own gardens between here and the river wall.
What Pimlico can double for
Kemp Town in Brighton, East Sussex
Kemp Town's white stucco terraces curve around Sussex Square and Lewes Crescent in the same portico and balustrade vocabulary as Pimlico's own squares, raised across the same three decades. The scale sits close too, four and five storeys with a continuous cornice along the block. A wide shot that takes in the Channel or the pier looks like a seaside resort, so keep the frame on the terraces and squares rather than the front. Try searching white stucco terraces crescent now.
Montpellier in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire
Cheltenham's Montpellier and Lansdown estates carry the same white stucco fronts, pilasters and wrought iron balconies from the 1820s and 1830s. The terraces stand lower and further apart, with garden plots in front rather than a continuous pavement edge. The wider gaps between houses and the greenery in front give away a lower density than Pimlico's, so a tighter frame on one terrace works better than a full street. Try searching stucco terraces wrought balconies now.
Dun Laoghaire's seafront terraces are rendered the same white as Pimlico's, with sash windows and wrought iron balconies from the 1830s through the 1850s. The harbour and the Irish Sea sit behind them, so the match holds only with the water kept out of frame. Different sash proportions and the coastal light give it away in a close look, so this works best as a distant or partial elevation. Try searching rendered terraces wrought iron balconies now.
