Bedford Square is a garden square in the Bloomsbury district of the Borough of Camden in London, England.
Bedford Square is a garden square in the Bloomsbury district of the Borough of Camden in London, England.
Built between 1775 and 1783 as an upper middle class residential area, the square has had many distinguished residents, including Lord Eldon, one of Britain's longest serving and most celebrated Lord Chancellors, who lived in the largest house in the square for many years. [1] The square takes its name from the main title of the Russell family, the Dukes of Bedford, who owned much of the land in what is now Bloomsbury. [2]
The architect Thomas Leverton is known to have designed some of the houses, although he may not have been responsible for all of them. [3]
The building agreements for Bedford Square were signed by the trustees of the late Duke of Bedford and William Scott and Robert Grews, the builders, in 1776. [4] The first leases, for the entire west side (Nos. 28–39), were granted in November 1776. It seems unlikely that these dozen houses were built within 11 months so building probably started in 1775. Except for No. 46, the south side leases were granted in 1777, the east side in 1777 and 1778 (except Nos. 1 and 10), and the north side in 1781 and 1782 (except Nos. 24–27, granted in 1777). No. 11, which stands in Gower Street but has always been considered part of the square, had a separate building agreement of 1781 and was leased in June 1783. [5] This section was designed and built by Peter Matthias Van Gelder. [6]
The leases were granted by the estate once the shells were built but with internal finishing still to be carried out. No. 23 was the last house to be occupied, its owner moving in during the last quarter of 1784. [7]
The delay in finishing the building of the square can be put down in part to the shortage of money during the American War of Independence. Loans were granted by the trustees of the estate to the builders in order to finance building work from November 1777. [8]
Number 1 Bedford Square is one of the great terraced houses of Georgian London and by far the best house in the square. [9] Sir John Summerson described it as a "particularly fine house" in 1945. [10]
Number 1 is almost certainly the work of the architect Thomas Leverton (1743-1824). [9] By his own admission Leverton designed the interiors of both Numbers 6 and 13 Bedford Square [11] and a number of details in those houses are repeated here. Although it sits outside the uniform symmetrical east side of the square, it has always been part of it and appropriately has always been numbered 1. [12] The house is distinguished by its central entrance, [13] rare for a three bay Georgian terraced house because such an arrangement required an ingenious plan to accommodate the staircase. [14] The front door leads into an entrance hall which is flanked by two separate spaces, an anteroom to the right and the fine stone staircase to the left. With the staircase in the front of the house, Leverton was able to design full width rooms to the rear half which took full advantage of the view over the established gardens of the British Museum. [15] There is a particularly fine decorative plaster ceiling in the first floor rear room. [16]
The house was threatened with demolition by the British Museum in 1860, along with Numbers 2 and 3 and the fourteen houses to the south in Bloomsbury Street, but nothing came of the museum's plans. [17] Then in the early 1930s a new building was planned which would stand only 20 feet from the rear elevation of Number 1. [17] The threat produced an article in Country Life that heralded the house as "a masterpiece of English architecture" and of "exceptional merit". Support came from Sir Edwin Lutyens, former resident of Number 31 Bedford Square for three years from 1915, who described the house as a "most interesting house ... of exceptional quality". [18] The British Museum's Duveen Gallery was built shortly before the Second World War [19] and today its plain brick flank wall is the view from the house rather than the gardens of the museum, which was such an important consideration in Thomas Leverton's original designs for the house. [17]
Bedford Square is one of the best preserved set pieces of Georgian architecture in London, but most of the houses have now been converted into offices. [20] Numbers 1–10, [3] 11, [21] 12–27, [22] 28–38 [23] and 40–54 are grade I listed buildings. [24]
The central garden remains private, but is opened to the public as part of the Open Garden Squares Weekend. [20] The square is Grade II* listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. [25]
Bedford College, the first place for female higher education in Britain, was originally located in (and named after) Bedford Square (No. 47).
Other squares on the Bedford Estate in Bloomsbury included:
Russell Square is a large garden square in Bloomsbury, in the London Borough of Camden, built predominantly by the firm of James Burton. It is near the University of London's main buildings and the British Museum. Almost exactly square, to the north is Woburn Place and to the south-east is Southampton Row. Russell Square tube station sits to the north-east.
Tavistock Square is a public square in Bloomsbury, in the London Borough of Camden near Euston Station.
Gordon Square is a public park square in Bloomsbury, London, England. It is part of the Bedford Estate and was designed as one of a pair with the nearby Tavistock Square. It is owned by the University of London.
Richard Norman Shaw RA, also known as Norman Shaw, was a British architect who worked from the 1870s to the 1900s, known for his country houses and for commercial buildings. He is considered to be among the greatest of British architects; his influence on architectural style was strongest in the 1880s and 1890s.
Belgrave Square is a large 19th-century garden square in London. It is the centrepiece of Belgravia, and its architecture resembles the original scheme of property contractor Thomas Cubitt who engaged George Basevi for all of the terraces for the 2nd Earl Grosvenor, later the 1st Marquess of Westminster, in the 1820s. Most of the houses were occupied by 1840. The square takes its name from one of the Duke of Westminster's subsidiary titles, Viscount Belgrave. The village and former manor house of Belgrave, Cheshire, were among the rural landholdings associated with the main home and gardens of the senior branch of the family, Eaton Hall. Today, many embassies occupy buildings on all four sides.
The Survey of London is a research project to produce a comprehensive architectural survey of central London and its suburbs, or the area formerly administered by the London County Council. It was founded in 1894 by Charles Robert Ashbee, an Arts-and-Crafts designer, architect and social reformer and was motivated by a desire to record and preserve London's ancient monuments. The first volume was published in 1900, but the completion of the series remains far in the future.
Thomas Leverton Donaldson was a British architect, notable as a pioneer in architectural education, as a co-founder and President of the Royal Institute of British Architects and a winner of the RIBA Royal Gold Medal.
Queen Square is a 2.4 hectares Georgian square in the centre of Bristol, England. Following the 1831 riot, Queen Square declined through the latter part of the 19th century, was threatened with a main line railway station, but then bisected by a dual carriageway in the 1930s. By 1991 20,000 vehicles including scheduled buses were crossing the square every day, and over 30% of the buildings around it were vacant.
Brunswick Town is an area in Hove, in the city of Brighton and Hove, England. It is best known for the Regency architecture of the Brunswick estate.
There are 24 Grade I listed buildings in the city of Brighton and Hove, England. The city, on the English Channel coast approximately 52 miles (84 km) south of London, was formed as a unitary authority in 1997 by the merger of the neighbouring towns of Brighton and Hove. Queen Elizabeth II granted city status in 2000.
Park Square is a large garden square or private appendix to Regent's Park in London and is split from a further green, the long northern side of Park Crescent, by Marylebone Road and (single-entrance) Regent's Park tube station. It consists of two facing rows of large, very classically formed, stuccoed, terraced houses with decorative lower floor balconies and a colonnade of consecutive porticos by architect John Nash, and was built in 1823–24. Alike, shorter-length terraces flank its corners at right angles, equally Grade I listed buildings: Ulster Terrace, Ulster Place, St Andrew's Place and Albany Terrace.
There are 72 Grade II* listed buildings in the city of Brighton and Hove, England. The city, on the English Channel coast approximately 52 miles (84 km) south of London, was formed as a unitary authority in 1997 by the merger of the neighbouring towns of Brighton and Hove. Queen Elizabeth II granted city status in 2000.
As of February 2001, there were 1,124 listed buildings with Grade II status in the English city of Brighton and Hove. The total at 2009 was similar. The city, on the English Channel coast approximately 52 miles (84 km) south of London, was formed as a unitary authority in 1997 by the merger of the neighbouring towns of Brighton and Hove. Queen Elizabeth II granted city status in 2000.
Regency Square is a large early 19th-century residential development on the seafront in Brighton, part of the British city of Brighton and Hove. Conceived by speculative developer Joshua Hanson as Brighton underwent its rapid transformation into a fashionable resort, the three-sided "set piece" of 69 houses and associated structures was built between 1818 and 1832. Most of the houses overlooking the central garden were complete by 1824. The site was previously known, briefly and unofficially, as Belle Vue Field.
Thomas Leverton was an English architect.
St Michael and All Angels is a Grade II* listed Church of England parish church in Bedford Park, Chiswick. It was designed by the architect Norman Shaw, who built some of the houses in that area. The church was consecrated in 1880. It is constructed in what has been described both as British Queen Anne Revival style and as Perpendicular Gothic style modified with English domestic features. Its services are Anglo-Catholic.
The Melville Monument is a large column in St Andrew Square, Edinburgh constructed between 1821 and 1827 as a memorial to Scottish statesman Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville.
As of February 2001, there were 1,124 listed buildings with Grade II status in the English city of Brighton and Hove. The total at 2009 was similar. The city, on the English Channel coast approximately 52 miles (84 km) south of London, was formed as a unitary authority in 1997 by the merger of the neighbouring towns of Brighton and Hove. Queen Elizabeth II granted city status in 2000.
As of February 2001, there were 1,124 listed buildings with Grade II status in the English city of Brighton and Hove. The total at 2009 was similar. The city, on the English Channel coast approximately 52 miles (84 km) south of London, was formed as a unitary authority in 1997 by the merger of the neighbouring towns of Brighton and Hove. Queen Elizabeth II granted city status in 2000.
As of February 2001, there were 1,124 listed buildings with Grade II status in the English city of Brighton and Hove. The total at 2009 was similar. The city, on the English Channel coast approximately 52 miles (84 km) south of London, was formed as a unitary authority in 1997 by the merger of the neighbouring towns of Brighton and Hove. Queen Elizabeth II granted city status in 2000.
The Duveen Gallery was ... completed in 1938 ...
A number of houses have blue plaques recording famous residents:
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51°31′08.08″N00°07′48.39″W / 51.5189111°N 0.1301083°W
