What did Laura Ashley and Bernard Ashley green plaque do at 83 Cambridge Street?

The Story

# 83 Cambridge Street, SW1 Standing before this elegant Victorian townhouse in Pimlico, you're standing at the birthplace of the Laura Ashley empire. Between 1954 and 1956, Laura and Bernard Ashley transformed this very address into their first printing workshop, where they began hand-printing fabrics on their kitchen table before moving to a basement space—a humble beginning for what would become an international design phenomenon. It was here, in these modest rooms just steps from the Thames, that Laura's distinctive floral patterns first came to life on linen and cotton, each piece bearing the mark of her meticulous artistic vision and Bernard's entrepreneurial drive. Though Laura Ashley's name would eventually grace shops across the world and her designs would define an entire aesthetic era, it all started here on Cambridge Street, where two young designers with limited resources and unlimited ambition proved that great creativity requires only vision, determination, and a willingness to begin small.