Great parks in Camden

Great parks in Camden /
Bloomsbury Square /
Brunswick Square /
Camden Square /
Cantelowes Gardens and Skatepark /
Hampstead Cemetery /
Kilburn Grange /
Hampstead Heath and Kenwood /
Lincoln's Inn Fields /
Primrose Hill, Regent's Park and London Zoo /
Queen Square /
Red Lion Square /
Russell Square /
St George's Gardens /
St Martin's Gardens /
St Pancras' Gardens /
Swiss Cottage Open Space /
Talacre Gardens /
Tavistock Square

Queen Square

Away from the busy traffic routes through Bloomsbury is Queen Square. The square is packed with features - lawns, rose beds, flowers, shrubs and trees, as well as a number of statues and monuments.

This square was originally the site of an ancient reservoir when this area was fields that surrounded London Town.

Although named after Queen Anne, the statue in the square is actually that of Queen Charlotte, wife of George III. When George III became ill with a hereditary kidney disease, he stayed at the house of a doctor in Queen Square. The illness, causing bouts of insanity, resulted in the king's eldest son, later George IV, being made Prince Regent in 1811. George III never recovered and died in 1820.

There is a plaque on a paved area that records the escape of 1000 people from a Zeppelin attack in 1915.

As a popular residential area William Morris, Jeremy Bentham and Jerome K Jerome all lived in the square.

Queen Square has retained some early Georgian buildings on its west side but today its surround is dominated by Great Ormond Street Hospital.