Traveller, archaeologist and diplomat Gertrude Bell has been honoured with an English Heritage Blue Plaque at 95 Sloane Street in Chelsea. The three storey Georgian house belonged to her stepmother Florence’s mother, Lady Olliffe, and served as her London base for over 40 years, from 1884 until her last visit to London in 1925.

English Heritage Senior Historian, Howard Spencer, said: "Gertrude Bell was a remarkable woman and we are delighted to be able to commemorate her achievements in several different fields with a blue plaque."

Bell – the subject of a recent TV documentary (Letters from Baghdad) and feature film (Queen of the Desert), starring Nicole Kidman – was a constant and welcome guest at number 95 from 1884, when she first matriculated at Queen's College in London, the first institution in Great Britain where girls could study for academic qualifications. The house’s interior was then said to be 'all dusty red velvet and heavy furniture, with a lingering smell of tomcat'. She continued to stay there in the holidays during her time at Oxford University, and after she graduated in June 1888, the next few years were spent between her Yorkshire home and Sloane Street. Bell’s father Hugh and stepmother Florence took over 95 Sloane Street on the death of Florence’s mother in 1898, and Gertrude continued to use it as her London base until her last visit to England in 1925; this included an extended spell of residence in 1915 while she managed the Red Cross’s Wounded and  Missing Enquiry Department’s office in Arlington Street. The house stayed in the family until Hugh’s death in 1931.

Bell travelled extensively in the 1890s and in the summers of 1899-1904 she undertook a series of climbs in the Alps. In 1901 she achieved ten new routes or first ascents in the Engelhorner group in the Bernese Oberland; one peak is named Gertrudspitze after her. Her later explorations and her archaeological investigations spawned a number of important publications.

In the Middle East, she undertook six major expeditions, on horse- or camel-back, through the deserts of what are now Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, and Iran. Bell’s journeys, although often gruelling and dangerous, have been described as 'majestic'. As well as two tents – one housing her writing table, one containing her bed and bath (in which she washed with lavender soap) – she travelled with a Wedgwood dinner service, silver candlesticks and hairbrushes, and crystal glasses. Her luggage contained couture evening dresses, lawn blouses, linen riding skirts, fur coats, hats, veils, and parasols. However, beneath her lacy petticoats she hid guns, while cartridges were secreted in her boots.

Bell became involved in politics in the Middle East during the First World War largely as a result of her mastery of Arabic languages and her first-hand knowledge of the tribal allegiances and the geography of the region. Some of her essays, collected together as The Arab of Mesopotamia, were given to British officers newly-arrived in Basra, as an instruction manual. In 1917 she was appointed Chief Political Officer to the British Resident in Baghdad. In this capacity she wrote a White Paper, Review of the Civil Administration of Mesopotamia (1920). Bell went on to play a considerable role in establishing the modern state of Iraq following the fall of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the war.

The English Heritage London Blue Plaques scheme is generously supported by David Pearl, Knight Frank and members of the public.