Great river views for sale with a Mitford thrown in

It looks like something from a film set. And not necessarily for the type of film that would suit your average rom-com, writes Yann Tear.

But it is a place with mystery and history and connection to a famous family and it was due to go under the hammer in a Savills auction, at the time of going to press on March 1.

It is a unique and quirky detached property positioned directly on the River Thames in Rotherhithe, with panoramic views towards Tower Bridge, The Shard and Canary Wharf.

The four-storey industrial-style residential property, filled with intrigue, was once part of a row of buildings destroyed by bombs in the Second World War and offers a glimpse into life and property of that era.

It was once owned by the barge company Braithwaite & Dean and was the office where lightermen would pull up in their barges to collect their wages.

Lightermen – as barge operators were once known – were one of the most characteristic groups of workers in London’s docks during the heyday of the Port of London, but their trade was eventually rendered largely obsolete by changes in shipping technology.

During the pre-war era, this building was formed of separate studios which housed artists and boatmen.

But it has a celebrity angle.

The house, formerly known as 41 Rotherhithe Street, was home to one of The Mitford sisters, Nancy’s younger sister Jessica and her husband Esmond Romilly (Winston Churchill’s nephew) from 1937 to 1939.

Nancy, a British novelist, biographer and journalist, was famous for several works, including Love in a Cold Climate – a romantic comedy evoking the lost glamour of aristocratic glamour between the wars.

Hers was a distinguished family name, with 18th century historian William Mitford being credited with the definitive history of ancient Greece.

Born to Lord and Lady Redesdale, there were six Mitford girls – Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica and Deborah – experienced an upbringing steeped in eccentricity.

Living in genteel poverty in stately homes, the girls variously believed in poltergeists, pre-destination and barmy superstitions.

Jessica, known to friends and family as Decca, counteracted sister Unity’s fascination with Hitler and Nazism and became a communist.

Eloping with her fellow communist cousin, Esmond, she ran off to fight the fascists during the Spanish Civil War.

Shunning her aristocratic upbringing, she moved to the US, where she fought for civil rights and wrote bestselling books, including Hons & Rebels and The American Way of Death.

She went on to become a late-blooming pop star, singing with her group Decca & The Dectones.

Nancy was a socialist. At the end of the war, she escaped a dull marriage by moving to Paris, where she wrote her novels.

She dressed in Dior and carried on a hopeless affair with Charles de Gaulle’s right-hand man, Gaston Palewski.

1 Fulford Street, to give it its official address now, has a guide price of £1.5million and is being offered to the market for the first time in 28 years.

Steven Morish of Savills Auctions has a pure estate agent-speak hat on when he said: “Fulford Street presents a rare opportunity to acquire a one-of-a-kind riverside property which is a well-known landmark in the local area.

“Offering 180-degree uninterrupted views of many of the city’s most iconic landmarks, including Tower Bridge, and with approximately 2,131 sq ft of accommodation over four floors, this is without doubt one of the most unique properties to come to auction in recent years.”

But to residents and passers-by, and amateur historians, it holds a fascination beyond the views it affords.

Picture: The Mitford Family in 1928. Front row, from left, Sydney Bowles with daughters Unity, Jessica and Deborah and father David Freeman-Mitford, second baron Redesdale. Second row: Diana and Pamela. Back row: Nancy and Tom Picture: Wikimedia Commons