When Raffles London opened in 2023, it didn’t only make headlines because it marked the luxury hoteliers’ first foray into the UK market, but also because it was chosen as gatekeeper of an important slice of British history. Housed within the perfectly-preserved OWO – formerly known as The Old War Office – the renovation of the Edwardian, Baroque-style behemoth was one of the most ambitious, heritage-rich developments London has ever seen. 

Dating back to 1906, this extraordinary edifice stands in an unparalleled location in Whitehall, at the nexus of government administration and the historic centre of the UK. Today, the Grade II-listed structure features 120 Thierry Despont-designed guest rooms, and much has been made of the fact that well-heeled guests can stay in the workplace of Winston Churchill, David Lloyd George and John Profumo, as well as toast the beginnings of MI5 and MI6, which were launched here (in fact, guests can still see the discreet Spies Entrance), and feel inspired in the same way author Ian Fleming was during his visits to the naval intelligence department, which ultimately resulted in his James Bond series. 

Arguably though, little fuss has been made of the powerful female workforce who worked out of The OWO – until now. Philippe Leboeuf, managing director at Raffles London at The OWO, explains: “It was the office of the nation’s most important leaders and statesmen, from Lord Kitchener and TE Lawrence to Richard Haldane and Winston Churchill. However women played a huge role in Britain’s 20^th-century war efforts, and the Special Operations Executive (SOE) was housed in the building’s basement, where many heroines of the Secret Service took their orders before going behind enemy lines. We wanted to acknowledge their bravery and champion the often unsung role of these women, [as well as] those who helped shape politics and medical support services at the time.”

On a mission to highlight the immeasurable contributions of female spies, Raffles has paid homage by naming six of its 39 suites after secret agents, and two after influential political and medical figures. “It is not so much their names that have been forgotten, as there are many novels and biographies about many of the women; it’s just that they do not see the same level of coverage or fame that many of the men who dominated world politics in the 20^th century received,” adds Leboeuf. “And, don’t forget much of their work was bound by the Official Secrets Act so their names would not be in the public domain. Nowadays we have much greater knowledge of their roles, and we can therefore help showcase their contribution to history.” 

With hundreds of women passing through the corridors of the Old War Office to be handed their assignments, Leboeuf admits it was no easy task to whittle them down to just eight. “We researched who worked in Churchill’s SOE during the Second World War. The candidates were interviewed and briefed in the basement, in what was called Room 055a.”

Of note were Second World War spies Virginia Hall Goillot, Odette Sansom, Vera May Atkins, and sisters Jacqueline and Eileen Nearne, as well as Christine Granville and Christian Lamb. “We have also named some of these suites after other notable women such as Clementine Churchill, Winston Churchill’s wife; Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor, the American-born British politician who was the first woman seated as an MP; and Brigadier Dame Evelyn Marguerite Turner, DBE, (known as Margot Turner) who was a prominent British military nurse during the Second World War.” 

Ready to meet the female spies that helped Britain win the war? We go inside each Raffles suite to discover the women who made their mark in history, and their incredible contributions to the Second World War. 

Christine Granville

Of Raffles’ five Heritage Suites, one is named after Christine Granville, otherwise known as Churchill’s favourite spy. Born Maria Krystyna Janina Skarbek, she was originally a Polish agent of the SOE and, in 1941, began using the alias Christine Granville, a name she legally adopted five years later. Celebrated for her daring exploits in intelligence and irregular-warfare missions in Nazi-occupied Poland and France, Granville was the first British female agent to serve in the field and the longest serving of all Britain’s wartime women agents, with her resourcefulness and success having been credited with influencing the organisation’s decision to recruit more female agents in Nazi-occupied countries. 

Granville famously predicted a German invasion of the Soviet Union, leading Winston Churchill to remark that she was ‘his favourite spy’. In 1944, she was parachuted into Nazi-occupied territory in France to help with the resistance effort before the Americans were able to launch a ground invasion. Her daring exploits earned her the George Medal and an OBE, as well as the French Croix de Guerre, who honoured her immense bravery. Post-war, she was rumoured to be romantically involved with Ian Fleming, who supposedly used her as inspiration for Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale. 

Inside the Granville Suite, inspired by Christine Granville, otherwise known as Churchill’s favourite spy

Christian Lamb

Christian Lamb, born 19 July 1920, was a brilliant Wren intelligence officer (the nickname for the women who worked in the Women's Royal Naval Service or WRNS) and worked on the D-Day landings from Whitehall. Having left school at 18, Lamb was staying with a French family, when, having not read a newspaper for a long time, she received a telegram from her father, Admiral Ronald Wolseley Oldham OBE, telling her to come home as war was imminent. Arriving back to the UK just as war was declared, Lamb was among the first of the Second World War Wrens. 

After a stint at the Kensington training establishment, Lamb became a Wren and, a year later, was promoted to Third Officer WRNS before being appointed to a post in Belfast – where many ships would join the convoys crossing the Atlantic – to watch over the operations room at Belfast Castle where the navy was based. Here, she met her husband, Lieutenant John Lamb DSC of HMS Oribi, and the couple became engaged after just 10 days, with their wedding hardly finished before HMS Oribi was called back to sea in April 1943 to escort a very slow convoy – the famous ONS 5. The only one of the eight women still living, Christian Lamb will celebrate her 105^th birthday this year.

Having met Lamb last year, Leboeuf says: “During the 80^th anniversary year of the D-Day landing in 2024, we introduced her to a key military official who went on to liaise with President Macron’s team so she could be awarded the Legion of Honour for her services to liberate France. This was one of the most important moments for me – to see age and determination honoured by today’s leaders. I often feel both exhilarated and overwhelmed by the history at Raffles London.”

Virginia Hall Goillot

The Germans gave her the nickname Artemis, and the Gestapo reportedly considered her ‘the most dangerous of all Allied spies’ – Virginia Hall Goillot was clearly a force to be reckoned with. An American-born agent who worked with the UK’s SOE and the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in France during the Second World War, Hall – whose code names were Marie and Diane – was a pioneering spy for the SOE, being the first female to take up residence in France in 1941. During the 15 months that followed, she organised resistance movements, supplied agents with money, weapons and supplies, and offered safe houses and medical assistance to wounded agents and pilots. Having lost part of her leg on the job, Hall used a prosthesis she named Cuthbert – which also earned her nicknames ‘The Limping Lady’ from the Germans and ‘Marie of Lyon’ by many of the SOE agents she assisted.

Odette Sansom

The first woman to be awarded the George Cross in the UK, Odette Sansom was one of the UK’s leading agents in France during the Second World War – and her efforts also saw her awarded the Legion d’Honneur by France. Also known as Odette Churchill and Odette Hallowes, as well as her code name Lise, she arrived in France in November 1942 and worked as a courier with the Spindle Network headed by Peter Churchill (whom she later married). In January 1943, to evade arrest, Churchill and Sansom moved their operations to Annecy in the French Alps, where they were arrested on 16 April 1943 by spy hunter Hugo Bleicher. 

Sansom spent the rest of the war imprisoned in Ravensbruck Concentration Camp and was one of the few to survive Nazi imprisonment. Her wartime experiences and endurance of brutal interrogation and imprisonment, which have been chronicled in books and films, have made her one of the most celebrated members of the SOE. 

Vera May Atkins

Vera May Atkins was a Romanian-born British spy who worked in the French branch of the SOE from 1941 to 1945. She took on many roles as a spy, including training officers and planning secret operations in France, while also recruiting many top female spies and deciphering coded German messages that no one else could crack. Atkins was also known for the tenderness and respect that she showed her agents; for example, when a number of 118 F Section agents remained missing after the war, Atkins made it her mission to find them and located nearly every one.

Inside the Atkins Suite, inspired by Vera May Atkins

Jacqueline and Eileen Nearne

Jacqueline Nearne initially resisted the recruitment of her younger sister Eileen as an SOE agent, but was left with little choice when her bosses at the Old War Office ordered her to return to England during the Second World War – as it was policy that two members of the same family should not be agents at the same time. Jacqueline Nearne MBE – code named Josette – was an agent in Nazi-occupied France, and worked as a courier for more than 14 months before safely returning home. 

Despite Jacqueline having declared her sister too young and immature to be an agent, Eileen arrived in France in 1944. Jacqueline resisted leaving, until one day an aeroplane landed at a clandestine airfield where she was present and chalked onto the fuselage was the message: “Jacqueline must come”. She obeyed the order – and discovered three weeks later that her handler was arrested by the Germans and a photograph of her was posted on notice boards offering a reward “for the capture dead or alive of an individual known as Jacqueline or Josette”. 

Although Eileen survived imprisonment in a German prison camp, she continued to suffer severe psychological and physical problems when she returned to the UK. Jacqueline nursed her but Eileen never regained her mental health.

Raffles' Heritage suites are available to book from £3,570 per night. 

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