Thurloe Square

Last updated

51°29′41″N0°10′19″W / 51.49472°N 0.17194°W / 51.49472; -0.17194

Contents

Thurloe Square with the Victoria and Albert Museum in the background Victoria and albert museum from thurloe square.jpg
Thurloe Square with the Victoria and Albert Museum in the background
The Ismaili Centre, to the north of Thurloe Place Ismaili Centre, London.JPG
The Ismaili Centre, to the north of Thurloe Place

Thurloe Square is a traditional garden square in South Kensington, London, England.

There are private communal gardens in the centre of the square for use by the local residents. The Victoria and Albert Museum is close by to the north across Thurloe Place and Cromwell Gardens. The nearest tube station is South Kensington to the west along Thurloe Street. The house at 5 Thurloe Square is very narrow, wedge-shaped, and only six feet wide at one end. [1]

History

The square (and the adjacent streets) are named after John Thurloe, an advisor of Oliver Cromwell, who owned the land in the 17th century. His descendant, Harris Brace, had a godson called John Alexander, who developed the area in the 1820s. George Basevi designed most of the houses. [2]

Sir Henry Cole (1808–1892), the first director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, lived at 33 Thurloe Square just opposite the museum. The building is marked with a blue plaque and is now the Kazakhstan Embassy.

The homeopath Margery Blackie lived and practised at no. 18 from 1929 to 1980. The building is marked with a blue plaque. [3]

On 22 March 1936, a reportedly peaceful anti-fascist protest of a few thousand people took place in Thurloe Square, addressed by John Strachey, against a British Union of Fascists rally at Royal Albert Hall half a mile away, a distance required by police direction. After 50 minutes, this was broken up by a mounted police baton charge. [4] [5] A critical commission of inquiry was conducted by the recently formed National Council for Civil Liberties which contributed to the background to the Public Order Act 1936. [6] [7]

The Yalta Memorial Garden, which contains a memorial to those repatriated as a result of the Yalta Conference following World War II, Twelve Responses to Tragedy , is situated at the north of the square between the square and the Cromwell Road. [8]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kensington</span> District within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in central London

Kensington is an area of London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, around 2.9 miles (4.6 km) west of Central London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kensington Gardens</span> Park in London, England

Kensington Gardens, once the private gardens of Kensington Palace, are among the Royal Parks of London. The gardens are shared by the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and sit immediately to the west of Hyde Park, in western central London. The gardens cover an area of 107 hectares. The open spaces of Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, Green Park, and St. James's Park together form an almost continuous "green lung" in the heart of London. Kensington Gardens are Grade I listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Thurloe</span> English politician (1616–1668)

John Thurloe was an English politician who served as secretary to the council of state in Protectorate England and spymaster for Oliver Cromwell and held the position of Postmaster General between 1655 and 1660. He was from Great Milton in Oxfordshire and of Lincoln's Inn,

Earl's Court is a district of Kensington in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in West London, bordering the rail tracks of the West London line and District line that separate it from the ancient borough of Fulham to the west, the sub-districts of South Kensington to the east, Chelsea to the south and Kensington to the northeast. It lent its name to the now defunct eponymous pleasure grounds opened in 1887 followed by the pre–World War II Earls Court Exhibition Centre, as one of the country's largest indoor arenas and a popular concert venue, until its closure in 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cromwell Road</span> Road in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England

Cromwell Road is a major London road in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, designated as part of the A4. It was created in the 19th century and is said to be named after Richard Cromwell, son of Oliver Cromwell, who once owned a house there.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Albertopolis</span> Area in South Kensington, London

South Kensington is a district just west of Central London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Historically it settled on part of the scattered Middlesex village of Brompton. Its name was supplanted with the advent of the railways in the late 19th century and the opening and naming of local tube stations. The area has many museums and cultural landmarks with a high number of visitors, such as the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Adjacent affluent centres such as Knightsbridge, Chelsea and Kensington, have been considered as some of the most exclusive real estate in the world.

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, an Inner London borough, has responsibility for some of the parks and open spaces within its boundaries. Most of them are relatively small: many are the typical London square, built to service the houses around that square. Two of the larger open spaces both form part of the "Magnificent Seven" cemeteries, being those at Brompton and Kensal Green. The parks are policed by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Parks Police.

Brompton, sometimes called Old Brompton, survives in name as a ward in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London. Until the latter half of the 19th century it was a scattered village made up mostly of market gardens in the county of Middlesex. It lay south-east of the village of Kensington, abutting the parish of St Margaret's, Westminster at the hamlet of Knightsbridge to the north-east, with Little Chelsea to the south. It was bisected by the Fulham Turnpike, the main road westward out of London to the ancient parish of Fulham and on to Putney and Surrey. It saw its first parish church, Holy Trinity Brompton, only in 1829. Today the village has been comprehensively eclipsed by segmentation due principally to railway development culminating in London Underground lines, and its imposition of station names, including Knightsbridge, South Kensington and Gloucester Road as the names of stops during accelerated urbanisation, but lacking any cogent reference to local history and usage or distinctions from neighbouring settlements.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Exhibition Road</span> Street in South Kensington, London, England

Exhibition Road is a street in South Kensington, London which is home to several major museums and academic establishments, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cromwell Gardens</span>

Cromwell Gardens is a short but major road in South Kensington, within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England. It joins the Cromwell Road at the junction with Exhibition Road to the west with the Brompton Road to the east.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Queen's Gate</span>

Queen's Gate is a street in South Kensington, London, England. It runs south from Kensington Gardens' Queen's Gate to Old Brompton Road, intersecting Cromwell Road.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Red Lion Square</span>

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ismaili Centre, London</span> Religious and cultural center for Ismailis

The Ismaili Centre, London, is one of six Ismaili Centres worldwide. Established in South Kensington in 1979, it is a religious, social and cultural meeting place for the Ismaili Muslim community, the first so designed in the Western world.

Angela Conner FRSS is an English sculptor who works in London. Conner has exhibited internationally and has large scale sculptures in public and private collections around the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Embassy of France, London</span> French diplomatic mission to the United Kingdom

The Embassy of France in London is the diplomatic mission of France to the United Kingdom. Located just off Knightsbridge at Albert Gate, one of the entrances to Hyde Park, it is situated immediately opposite the Embassy of Kuwait.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Statue of Edward Jenner, London</span>

A statue of Edward Jenner, the physician, scientist and pioneer of the world's first vaccine, is located in Kensington Gardens in London. A work of the sculptor William Calder Marshall, the bronze was originally unveiled by Albert, Prince Consort in Trafalgar Square on 17 May 1858, before being moved to its present location in 1862. It is a Grade II listed building.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margery Blackie</span> British homeopath

Margery Grace Blackie CVO MD, FFHom was a British Doctor of Medicine who was appointed as the first woman royal physician to Queen Elizabeth II.

<i>Twelve Responses to Tragedy</i>

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yalta Memorial Garden</span>

The Yalta Memorial Garden is a small triangular garden in South Kensington, west London, SW7. It is 0.0417 hectares in size. The garden contains Twelve Responses to Tragedy, a memorial located that commemorates people displaced as a result of the Yalta Conference at the conclusion of World War II. The memorial was dedicated in 1986 to replace a previous memorial dedicated in 1982 that had been repeatedly damaged by vandalism.

References

  1. ↑ "Is this London's thinnest house? The story behind 5 Thurloe Square". 28 January 2018.
  2. ↑ Weinreb, Ben; Hibbert, Christopher (1992). The London Encyclopaedia (reprint ed.). Macmillan. p. 888.
  3. ↑ "Blackie's home and practice on Thurloe Square". RBKC. Retrieved 28 March 2015.
  4. ↑ "Disturbances, Kensington (Oral Answers To Questions)". Hansard. UK Parliament. 25 March 1936. Column 1227. Retrieved 5 January 2023.
  5. ↑ "Disturbances, Kensington (Debate)". Hansard. UK Parliament. 25 March 1936. Column 1361. Retrieved 5 January 2023.
  6. ↑ Jennifer Karen Neller (April 2020). Genealogy of the 'Stirring Up Hatred' Offences of England and Wales (PDF) (Thesis). Birkbeck, University of London. p. 138. Retrieved 5 January 2023.
  7. ↑ "Report of a commission of inquiry into certain disturbances at Thurloe Square, South Kensington on March 22nd, 1936". National Council for Civil Liberties. 1936. Retrieved 5 January 2023.
  8. ↑ "Communist Victims/Twelve Responses to Tragedy". War Memorials Online. Retrieved 30 January 2016.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.