Russell Square

Russell Square

Russell Square is a large garden square in Bloomsbury, in the London Borough of Camden, built predominantly by James Burton. It is near the University of London's main buildings and the British Museum. To the north is Woburn Place and to the south-east is Southampton Row. Russell Square tube station is nearby to the north-east.

It is named after the surname of the Earls and Dukes of Bedford; the freehold remains with the Bedford Estate, though the square is managed by Camden Council. The gardens are Grade II listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.^[1]

History

Hotel Russell, at 1–8 Russell Square.

'London Social Centre', a squatting action by anarchists in Russell Square.

This oak tree marks the site in Russell Square where so many floral tributes were laid in remembrance of those who suffered in the London bombings of July 7th 2005.

Plaque at the oak tree.

Following the demolition of Bedford House, Russell Square and Bedford Square were laid out in 1804.^[2] The square is named after the surname of the Earls and Dukes of Bedford, who developed the family's London landholdings in the 17th and 18th centuries.^[2] Thomas Lawrence had a studio at number 65 (1805–1830).^[3] Other past residents include the famous 19th century architectural partnership of father and son, Philip and Philip Charles Hardwick who lived at number 60 in the 1850s.^[4]

Russell Square cabmen's shelter

The Cabmen's Shelter Fund was established in London in 1875 to run shelters for the drivers of hansom cabs and later hackney carriages (and taxicabs).^[5]

On the eastern side the Hotel Russell, built in 1898 to a design by Charles Fitzroy Doll, dominates (its builders were connected with the company which created RMS Titanic),^[6] alongside the Imperial Hotel, built in 1966.^[7]

The square contained large terraced houses aimed mainly at upper-middle-class families. A number of the original houses survive, especially on the southern and western sides. Those to the west are occupied by the University of London, and there is a blue plaque on one at the north west corner commemorating the fact that T. S. Eliot worked there from the late 1920s when he was poetry editor of Faber & Faber: a building now used by the School of Oriental and African Studies (a college of the University of London).^[8]

In 1998, the London Mathematical Society moved from rooms in Burlington House to De Morgan House, at 57–58 Russell Square, in order to accommodate staff expansion.^[9]

In 2002, the square was re-landscaped in a style based on the original early 19th century layout by Humphry Repton (1752–1818).^[10]

Since 2004, the two buildings on the southern side, at numbers 46 and 47, have been occupied by the Huron University USA in London (now the London campus for EF International Language Centres and is the Centre for Professional Students over the age of 25).^[11]

On 7 July 2005, two terrorist bombings occurred near the square. One of the bombings was on a London Underground train from King's Cross St Pancras tube station to Russell Square tube station, and another was on a bus on Tavistock Square, near Russell Square. To commemorate the victims, many flowers were laid at a spot on Russell Square just south of the café. The location is now marked by a memorial plaque and a young oak tree.^[12]

At 52-53 Russell Square, is the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, which moved there in 2009.^[13] The square was also the site of a mass stabbing in 2016.^[14]

Literature and culture

• In the early chapters of Thackeray's Vanity Fair (1848), set c. 1812, Russell Square is evoked as the residence of the "John Sedley, Esquire, of Russell Square, and the Stock Exchange."^[15]
• 21 Russell Square is the murderer's street address in the novel (but not in the movie adaptation) The Murderer Lives at Number 21 (L'Assassin habite au 21) by the Belgian writer Stanislas-André Steeman.^[16]
• In John Dickson Carr's detective novel The Hollow Man, the victim, Professor Grimaud, lives in a house on the western side of Russell Square.^[17]
• In Alan Hollinghurst's novel "The Swimming Pool Library" (1988) the protagonist William Beckwith spends time here with his lover who works in a hotel overlooking the square.^[18]
• In Chapter 6 - Rendezvous of John Wyndham's novel "The Day of the Triffids" (1951) The main characters William (Bill) Masen and Josella Playton are photographed by Elspeth Cary in Russell Square while practicing with Triffid Guns.^[19]
• Russell Square is the location of the eponymous bookshop in the Channel 4 sitcom Black Books.^[20]
• In Ben Aaronovitch’s Peter Grant books, the first of which is The Rivers of London (AKA Midnight Riot), The Folly – headquarters of British wizardry – is located in Russell Square.^[21]
• Virginia Woolf set many scenes of her novel Night and Day (1919) in Russell Square.^[22]

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Russell Square.

• List of eponymous roads in London
• Other squares of the Bedford Estate in Bloomsbury included:
  • Bedford Square
  • Bloomsbury Square
  • Gordon Square
  • Tavistock Square
  • Torrington Square
  • Woburn Square

References

Coordinates: 51°31′18″N 0°7′34″W / 51.52167°N 0.12611°W / 51.52167; -0.12611