History of Queen Square

Queen Square was first set out in 1716 on land owned by Sir Nathaniel Curzon of Kedlestone (a hamlet to the north of Derby) It was originally known as Devonshire Square and was renamed in honour of Anne, the reigning Queen.

During 1713-1725, houses were built around three sides of the square. The north end was left undeveloped to provide a vista towards Hampstead and Highgate. In 1776 Fanny Burney wrote in her novel ‘Evelina’, of the ‘beautiful prospect’ from her Queen Square house ‘of the hills, ever verdant and smiling’. 

The church of St George the Martyr has stood at the south end of the square since 1706. The Queen’s Larder pub at No. 1 Queen Square dates as a building from 1710.  It is believed that George III once stayed at the square to see his doctor, and that his wife Charlotte rented a cellar under the then beer shop at No.1 to store special food for him, hence the pub’s name. A statue in the present day square is thought to be of this Queen Charlotte.

The square was initially an aristocratic area with a reputation for healthiness; later artists and intellectuals began to move in. Famous residents included the Bishops of Carlisle, Chester, and Chichester; Lord Windsor and Lord Kingtson and Robert Nelson - the author of Fasts and Festivals, who was buried in St Georges’ Gardens (10 minutes walk from Queen Square). St George’s Gardens was the first burial ground in London not to be sited next to it's church.

In the 19th century, hospitals, convents and educational buildings replaced many of the square’s original houses. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote:

‘Queen Square, Bloomsbury is a little enclosure of tall trees and comely brick houses…’ ‘As you go round it, you read, upon every second door plate, some offer of help to the afflicted.  There are hospitals for sick children, where you may see a little white-faced convalescent on the balcony talking to his brothers and sisters and the baby, who are below there...’

At 24-25 Queen Square, there was a fashionable girls school founded in the early 18th century, which became known as the ‘the Ladies Eton’. In 1865, ‘The Firm’ a business set up by William Morris and others from nearby, Red Lion Square moved to No. 26 which had workshops at the back.

In the 1830s an Act of Parliament of the reign of William IV was passed to protect the squares and gardens within the united parishes of St Andrew, Holborn above Bars, and St George the Martyr. Commissioners nominated and appointed resident householders to maintain, ornament and improve the gardens. These householders or trustees were allowed to claim expenses from the commissioners, who in turn charged the surrounding houses a levy. There are still trustees of Queen Square and we maintain the gardens. 

It is thought that there was once an underground reservoir fed by nearby springs under Queen Square. During the middle ages, the reservoir supplied the Grey Friars convent near Newgate Street, Holborn with water via an underground pipe and tunnel (known as The Devil’s Conduit). A well and conduit head remained in the back garden of No. 20 Queen Square until 1911 when the site was redeveloped.  

A bomb from a Zeppelin raid landed on the Gardens in 1915. Luckily no one was killed. There is small plaque marking the spot where the bomb landed. During the Second World War, around 2000 people slept in an air raid shelter below the square.

In the 1972 Trident Air disaster, 16 local Homeopathic doctors were killed and two benches in the square are dedicated to them. At the south end of square a floral bowl and lines by Philip Larkin and Ted Hughes commemorate the Queen’s Silver Jubilee of 1977. In 1997, a sculpture of Sam the cat was unveiled at the southwest corner in honour of a local resident who had been very active in the area. 

References

• East of Bloomsbury, Camden History Society, compiled David A. Hayes 1998
• My Street Queen Square by Wyn Prescott, Camden History Review 1979
• Queen Square and the National Hospital 1860-1960, Edward Arnold 1960
• Queen Square, Hamilton 1926

With thanks to Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre

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