Audrey Hepburn will get blue plaque in London – as list of honourees revealed

Audrey Hepburn and glam rock musician Marc Bolan are among the stars being honoured with blue plaques celebrating their “profound impact”.

Plaques will also honour novelist Barbara Pym, artist Graham Sutherland, ballerina Alicia Markova and Jamaican writer and campaigner Una Marson.

The blue plaque scheme has been running since 1866.

Hepburn’s plaque will go up in Mayfair, a high-end neighbourhood of London where the actress landed her Oscar-winning role as Princess Anne in 1953 romance film Roman Holiday, starring alongside Gregory Peck.

The actress was sent to a boarding school in England by her parents, Irish-English businessman James Hepburn Ruston and a Dutch-Hungarian-French noblewoman, Baroness Ella Van Heemstra.

She has four Academy Award best actress nods for romantic comedies Sabrina and Breakfast At Tiffany’s, drama The Nun’s Story, and horror Wait Until Dark.

Shortly before she died aged 63 in 1993, she was presented the British Academy’s Special Award by the Princess Royal.

English Heritage curatorial director, Matt Thompson, said: “2025 marks an exciting year for the Blue Plaques Scheme as we honour these outstanding individuals who transformed the cultural fabric of London.

“From literature and art to dance and music, these figures helped shape the London we know today.

“Their contributions not only had a profound impact on their fields but also continue to inspire generations.”

T Rex frontman Bolan will be marked with a plaque at one of his west London addresses, while English National Ballet co-founder Markova is set to be honoured at her childhood home in Muswell Hill.

Get It On hitmaker Bolan died aged 29 in 1977 when his car smashed into a tree in south-west London.

The location for a plaque commemorating Jamaican writer Marson, claimed by the BBC to be its first black producer on the payroll who would go on to develop Caribbean Voices, part of the Calling The West Indies series, is yet to be chosen.

The blue plaques, which need the owner of the building to approve them, are set to be installed throughout this year.

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Previous honourees include Princess Diana, Waiting for Godot playwright Samuel Beckett, and Great Expectations author Charles Dickens.

In 2024, the scheme was officially expanded outside of the capital, with the woman credited as the first black matron in the NHS, Daphne Steele, becoming the principal honouree with a Yorkshire plaque.