Bloomsbury Square

“ Has an alarm against that worship spread,⁠10
Is practising those beaten paths of cruising,
And for new levies on Proposals musing.
⁠'Tis true, that Bloomsbury square's a noble place:
But what are lofty buildings in thy case? ”

“ N Great Russell street, Bloomsbury square, is the British Museum, one of the chief glories of the English metropolis, and an institution of which every Londoner is deservedly proud. There is, perhaps, no finer collection of curiosities and antiquities, and the nation has been for a century gathering the tributes of Science, Art, and Antiquity together in this vast building, which covers, with grounds and outbuildings, an area of seven acres. ”

“ You'll drive me to Bloomsbury Square, or I'll make it 'ot for you!'
"Now I knew too much to get into an argument with a woman, and so I drove to Bloomsbury Square. But when I had stopped at the number that she had given me she did not attempt to get out. She was perfectly sober, but in my opinion she was stark crazy, for she insisted that I had lost my way, and that we were not in Bloomsbury Square. ”

“ The neighbourhood of Bloomsbury Square towards four o’clock of a November afternoon is not so crowded as to secure to the stranger, of appearance anything out of the common, immunity from observation. ”

“ Bloomsbury square, Southampton street, Holborn. This square has been lately embellished with many goodhouses, and the grass plats in the middle surrounded with neat iron rails. The north side is entirely taken up with Bedford House, which is elegant, and was the design of Inigo Jones. Besides the body of the house, are two wings, and on each side the proper offices. ”

“ OLD SQUARES. THE old, smaller squares in London are very interesting from their tranquil, retired air and antique pattern, and venerable trees. None is more characteristic than Queen Square in Bloomsbury, with its pleasant Queen Anne and Georgian houses running round. Most of these inclosures were laid out originally after the Dutch manner, which is still apparent. It must be a curious solitary sensation to live in one of these retreats, and they are affected by students and literary men. ”

“ A few great men still retained their hereditary hotels in the Strand. The stately dwellings on the south and west of Lincoln's Inn Fields, the Piazza of Covent Garden, Southampton Square, which is now called Bloomsbury Square, and King's Square in Soho Fields, which is now called Soho Square, were among the favourite spots. Foreign princes were carried to see Bloomsbury Square, as one of the wonders of England. [88] Soho Square, which had just been built, was to our ancestors a subject of pride with which their posterity will hardly sympathise. ”

“ But then most of these are, like old Kensington Palace, really of Queen's Anne's time, and the original is ever better than the imitation. No doubt, to the inhabitant, there are accompanying drawbacks to some of these; beetles of long standing may infest their grimy kitchens, and their ancient oak panelling may be prolific in those large rats which are so unpleasantly suggestive, to the nervous, of ghosts.
Queen Square is the oldest of all the Bloomsbury Squares; for in 1746 London hardly extended further than the northern end of Southampton Row, all beyond being more or less open country. ”

“ From these we proceeded to view a more perfect specimen of the same sort in the Model Lodging House of George Street, Bloomsbury Square, a house which was built de novo, for the purpose of perfectly illustrating the principle. This house accommodates one hundred and four working men, and combines every thing essential or valuable in such an establishment—complete ventilation and drainage ”

“ The fair hair is powdered; the large eyes gaze from the soft oval face conscious of, and content with, its comeliness; the landscape is sufficiently reminiscent of nature to harmonise with the pretty artificiality of the contented little lady who left Duke Street, Bloomsbury, to sit in the studio of "the man in Cavendish Square" on May 7, 14, 25, July 1, 9, 22, of the year 1789. ”

“ There were many things Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square came gradually to the conclusion were not worth the doing:—Snatching at the gravy; pouncing out of one’s turn upon the vegetables and helping oneself to more than one’s fair share ”

“ London, it has been ascertained, attracts now a greater number of tourists than any other place in the world, and these tourists mostly lodge in Bloomsbury. The theatrical world, also, lives largely about here—it is so convenient for the theatres; but it prefers, for its part, private lodgings, or flats. Yet, even with all this yearly influx from other nations, Bloomsbury is wonderfully little known to the world of shops or of fashion. Oxford Circus is only distant ten minutes from the Russell Hotel, yet "where is Russell Square?" ”

“ Paternoster Square has its centre packed with buildings, and for aught I know there is nothing to prevent the occupation in a similar way of the centres of Finsbury Square and Circus, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, the Gardens of the Temple and Gray’s Inn, of Russell and Bloomsbury Square, and, in short, of every inch of green that can be turned into money. ”

“ James the Less, Bishop of Jerusalem, now St. James’s Palace. The district of Soho was known by its present name as long ago as the sixteenth century; “So ho!” being the cry of the huntsmen when calling off their harriers in the days when the whole of London west of Drury Lane was open country. Bloomsbury is a corruption of “Lomesbury Village,” of which the Manor House stood on the site of Bloomsbury Square. Smithfield is a modern perversion of “Smoothfield,” an extensive tract of meadow land where horses were sold and tournaments were held as far back as the twelfth century. ”

“ The squares have a look of seclusion, of shady walks, and retired leisure, which there is nothing to rival either in Belgravia or Mayfair. It is, or was—for it is many years since the present writer has passed over their broad pavements,{14} or stood under the large, benignant, and stately shadow of the trees in Russell Square—a region apart, above fashion, a sober heart and centre of an older and steadier London, such as is not represented in the Row, and takes little part in the rabble and rout of fashion, the decent town of earlier days. ”

“ Thus it had come about during that dim and delicate London June that the young lady from Eaton Square had become a familiar figure in the mind, if not in the life, of the Socialist potter of Church Street, Bloomsbury. ”

“ Pennycherry.
Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square, assembled after dinner in the drawing-room, discussed the stranger with that freedom and frankness characteristic of Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square, towards the absent.
“Not what I call a smart young man,” was the opinion of Augustus Longcord, who was something in the City.
“Thpeaking for mythelf,” commented his partner Isidore, “hav’n’th any uthe for the thmart young man. Too many of him, ath it ith.” ”

“ I do not mean to imply by this that the Mannerings lived in Russell Square, or had any pretensions to be regarded among the magnates of Bloomsbury; for they were poor people, quite poor, living the quietest life; not rich enough even to have a house of their own; mere lodgers, occupying a second floor in a house which was full of other lodgers, but where they retained the importance and dignity of having furnished their own rooms. ”

“ The Square was completely deserted, but when he saw a scattered rout of people flying north, up Bloomsbury Street, he closed the window and began to pace up and down his well-fitted writing room, sanctified now, by the five years’ work he had done there.
What so annoyed and disturbed him was that some officious, political fool should have upset his scholarly deductions from the vast precedents of history. He would not admit for one moment that he had been mistaken; his chain of reasoning was unassailable. ”

“ Thence, eastward still, and we find ourselves in the Bloomsbury and Bedford Square region, whose old houses, once occupied by rank and fashion, are mostly given over to lodgers like ourselves, while resident middle-class foreigners make their homes largely in the region around Leicester Square. ”

“ Queen Square was built in Queen Anne's reign, [Pg 82] and named in her honour, but it is a statue of Queen Charlotte that stands beneath the plane-trees in the centre.
When it was first built, much eulogy was bestowed upon it, because of the beautiful view to the Hampstead and Highgate Hills, for which reason the north side was left open; it is still open, but the prospect it commands is only the further side of Guilford Street. The Square is a favourite place for charitable institutions. ”

“ The largest and most solid of all the substantial houses in Carnarvon Square, Bloomsbury, is Number Fifteen, which, by reason of its corner position (Mulgrave Street intersecting it at right angles at this point) , has been enabled to stretch itself out at the back. It is a house which a man who wanted to convey the idea of a solid income without ostentation or attempt at fashion would find the very thing to assist his purpose. The ladies of such a house would not desire to belong to the world farther west ”

“ Young men learning to become lawyers, students in various metropolitan colleges, actresses in or out of employment, reduced ladies, who had just sufficient income to keep body and soul together, literary aspirants and adventurers down in their luck, were to be found at 2Z Thimble Square, Bloomsbury. It was a fluctuating population which came and went throughout the year. Sometimes the house would be full, at other times it was almost empty but in one way and another Miss Grison always contrived to satisfy her landlord and pay her taxes. ”

“ The Horseshoe Hotel can claim fairly ancient descent; it has been in existence as a tavern from 1623. It was called the Horseshoe from the shape of its first dining-room. A Consumption Hospital stands midway between North and South Crescent.
Bedford Square also falls within St. Giles's [Pg 98] parish, but it belongs by character and date to Bloomsbury. The Square was erected about the very end of the eighteenth century. Dobie says that "Bedford Square arose from a cow-yard to its present magnificent form ... ”

“ This house fills a gap between the premises in Bloomsbury Street (formerly Charlotte Street) and those forming the eastern block of the square. It is distinctive in its elevation (Plate 63) , and has marked characteristics of a Leverton design. The well-proportioned entrance, though finished in plaster work, is highly ornamented, the detail being unusually refined (Plate 64) . The introduction of an ornamental panel above the main cornice of the building gives a graceful balance to the composition. In passing, it may be noticed that the cornice of No. ”

“ A delicacy worthy, as it is an advantage to the inhabitants, and a beauty even with regard to the square itself.
Queen’s Square street, Long Ditch, Westminster.
Queen street. Many of these streets were thus named after the restoration, in honour of the royal family. 1. Bloomsbury. 2. Opposite King street in Cheapside; this street was widened, and had its name 241changed to Queen street, by act of Parliament, after the fire of London. 3. Great Russel street, Bloomsbury. 4. Great Windmill street. 5. Hog lane, St. Giles’s. 6. Hoxton. 7. Long Ditch, Westminster. 8. In the Mint, Southwark. 9. ”

“ Nearly every house is cut up into chambers. Abernethy, the great surgeon, formerly lived in this street, and Addington, Viscount Sidmouth, was born here; Bishop Warburton, the learned theologian and writer of the eighteenth century, and Elizabeth, daughter of Oliver Cromwell, are also said to have been among the residents. Ralph, the author of "Publick Buildings," admired it prodigiously, naming it one of the finest streets in London.
Red Lion Square took its name from a very well-known tavern in Holborn, one of the largest and most notable of the old inns. ”

“ Giles's Runs." The official residence of the Lord Chancellor was on the east side. Lord Loughborough lived there, and subsequently Lord Eldon, who had to escape with his wife into the British Museum gardens when the mob made an attack on his house during the Corn Law riots.
The streets running north and south are all of the same prosperous, substantial character. About Chenies Street large modern red-brick mansions have arisen.
Woburn Square is a quiet place, with fine trees growing in its pleasant garden. ”

“ Let me confess at once that we are a bit supercilious in our attitude toward the sister Square far to our West, across the Alps of Broadway. Our Square was an established center of the social respectabilities when the foot of Fifth Avenue was still frequented by the occasional cow whose wanderings are responsible for the street-plan of Greenwich Village. Our Square remains true to the ancient and simple traditions, whereas Washington Square has grown long hair, smeared its fingers with paint and its lips with free verse, and gone into debt for its inconsiderable laundry bills. ”

“ There is scarcely a plot of ground below Fourteenth Street without its story and its associations, its motley company of memories and spectres both good and bad, its imperishably adventurous savour of the past, imprisoned in the dry prose of registries and records. Let us just take a glance, a bird's-eye view as it were, of that region which we now know as Washington Square, as it was when the city of New York bought it for a Potter's Field. ”

“ The peculiar and somewhat old-world charm of Bloomsbury is, like that of Chelsea, only made known to her devotees. To the visitor to London, no less than to the fashionable dweller in the West-End, it is a grimy, sordid, squalid region, where slums abound, where "no nice people live," and where mere "going out to dinner" necessitates either the paying of a half-crown cab fare, or the sacrifice of an hour in the bone-shaking omnibus. Hence arises the custom of saying that "Bloomsbury is so far away." ”