What did Jacqueline du Pré and Margot Fonteyn blue plaque do at 2 Rutland Garden Mews?

The Story

# 2 Rutland Garden Mews, SW7 At this elegant South Kensington address, two of the twentieth century's most luminous performers—Margot Fonteyn and Jacqueline du Pré—shared a home during the 1960s, a period when both women were at the absolute apex of their careers and becoming international icons in their respective arts. During her time at Rutland Garden Mews, du Pré was establishing herself as perhaps the greatest cellist of her generation, recording her legendary Elgar Cello Concerto in 1965, while Fonteyn continued her reign as prima ballerina assolluta of the Royal Ballet just minutes away in South Kensington. The mews cottage became an intimate sanctuary where artistic excellence was the everyday standard—a place where two women of extraordinary discipline and talent could retreat from the concert halls and theatres that demanded so much of them, finding understanding in each other's singular dedication to their crafts. This modest townhouse thus stands as a quiet testament to a remarkable moment in British cultural history, when genius concentrated itself in one small corner of London, and two incomparable artists lived as neighbours in what must have felt like a private world apart.