Tavistock Square

{{Short description|Public square in London, England}} {{Use dmy dates|date=October 2017}} {{Use British English|date=October 2017}} {{Infobox street |image=Tavistock Square Gardens, Bloomsbury - geograph.org.uk - 5212603.jpg |caption=Tavistock Square, looking north |map = | mapframe-wikidata = yes | mapframe-zoom = 15 | coordinates = {{coord|51.5249903|-0.1289968}} | postal_code = WC1 |country=Great Britain |namesake=Marquess of Tavistock |location=Bloomsbury, London Borough of Camden, Inner London }} '''Tavistock Square''' is a public square in Bloomsbury, in the London Borough of Camden near Euston Station.

==History== Tavistock Square was built shortly after 1806 by the property developer James Burton and the master builder Thomas Cubitt for Francis Russell, 5th Duke of Bedford, and formed part of the Bedford Estate in London, owned by the Dukes of Bedford.<ref>{{cite web|title='Tavistock Square', in Survey of London; Volume 21, the Parish of St Pancras Part 3: Tottenham Court Road and Neighbourhood, ed. J R Howard Roberts and Walter H Godfrey |publisher=London|year=1949|page=97-98|url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol21/pt3/pp97-98|access-date= 15 July 2018}}</ref> The square takes its name from ''Marquess of Tavistock'', a courtesy title given to the eldest sons of the Dukes of Bedford.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bedfordestates.com/london-garden-squares/squares/tavistock-square/|title=Tavistock Square|publisher=Bedford Estates|access-date=15 July 2018}}</ref>

In 1920 the Tavistock Clinic was founded in the square, a pioneering psychiatric clinic whose patients included shell-shock victims of the First World War.<ref name=lost>{{cite web|url=https://ezitis.myzen.co.uk/tavistock.html|title=Tavistock Centre|publisher=Lost Hospitals of London|access-date=15 July 2018}}</ref> In 1946 the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations separated from the Tavistock Clinic. The Tavistock Clinic has since moved to Swiss Cottage.<ref name=lost/>

Richard Lydekker, naturalist, geologist and writer of numerous books on natural history, was born at Tavistock Square in 1849.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OuU54j4aT6QC&dq=Richard+Lydekker+Tavistock+Square&pg=PA243|title=Richard Lydekker|date=15 September 2011|publisher=Alumni Cantabrigienses|isbn=9781108036146|access-date=15 July 2018}}</ref> thumb|The 7 July 2005 bomb on bus number 30 exploded to the left of the red postbox in front of BMA House. Tavistock Square was the scene of one of the four suicide bombings on 7 July 2005. The bomb was detonated by 18-year-old Hasib Hussain on a double-decker bus bearing route number 30; it had been diverted from its normal route along Euston Road because of traffic disruption by the other three bombings at tube stations. The bomb exploded immediately outside the British Medical Association building, many of whose staff came out to give what help they could. The explosion killed 13 passengers, plus Hussain himself. Many others were injured.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/7-7-anniversary-uk-s-risk-of-terror-attack-higher-now-than-days-of-london-bombings-1-7341303|title=7/7 Anniversary: UK's Risk of Terror Attack Higher Now than Days of London Bombings'|newspaper=Yorkshire Post|date=4 July 2015|access-date=15 July 2018}}</ref> In September 2018, a memorial honouring the victims and the efforts of those who gave assistance was unveiled in Tavistock Square Gardens, replacing a plaque that had been fixed to the railings outside BMA House, opposite to the new site.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-45485154|title= 7/7 London bombings: Memorial for bus explosion victims unveiled|website=BBC News|date=12 September 2018|access-date=5 December 2018}}</ref>

==Public art== The centre-piece of the gardens is a statue of Mahatma Gandhi, sculpted by Fredda Brilliant and installed in 1968. The hollow pedestal was intended, and is used, for people to leave floral tributes to the peace campaigner and nonviolent resister to oppression in South Africa and British rule in India.<ref name="AR">{{Cite episode | title = Cheltenham Town Hall 2 | series = Antiques Roadshow | series-link = Antiques Roadshow | url = https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0159jb9 | access-date = 2013-04-16 | network = BBC Television | date = 2013-04-14 | series-no = 35 | number = 19 }}</ref>

A cherry tree was planted in 1967 in memory of the victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.<ref name=atlas>{{cite web|url=https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/peace-garden-at-tavistock-square|title=Peace Garden at Tavistock Square|publisher=Atlas Obscura|access-date=15 July 2018}}</ref>

A generation later, in 1994, the Conscientious Objectors Commemorative Stone commemorating "men and women conscientious objectors all over the world and in every age" by Hugh Court was unveiled.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ppu.org.uk/memorials/peace/london/costone.html|title=Conscientious objectors' stone|website=Ppu.org.uk|access-date=17 December 2017|archive-date=17 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160317043533/http://www.ppu.org.uk/memorials/peace/london/costone.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>

These three features have led to the square unofficially being regarded by some as a peace park or garden, and annual ceremonies are held at each of these memorials.<ref name=atlas/>

A bust of the writer Virginia Woolf, cast from a 1931 sculpture by Stephen Tomlin (1901–1937), was unveiled in 2004 at the southwest corner of the square. Woolf lived at 52 Tavistock Square between 1924 and 1939. From there she and her husband Leonard Woolf ran the Hogarth Press, which became a prominent and influential publisher at the forefront of modernist fiction and poetry (publishing T.S. Eliot, E.M. Forster and Katherine Mansfield among others) and translating the works of Sigmund Freud into English.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.londonremembers.com/memorials/virginia-woolf-bust|title=Virginia Woolf bust|publisher=London Remembers|access-date=15 July 2018}}</ref>

The square contains a memorial to the surgeon Dame Louisa Aldrich-Blake (1865 –1925), with a bust of Aldrich-Blake by Arthur George Walker on a plinth designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.<ref>{{cite web|title=Memorial to Dame Louisa Aldrich Blake in Tavistock Square Gardens|url=http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/101378970-memorial-to-dame-louisa-aldrich-blake-in-tavistock-square-gardens-bloomsbury-ward#.WdPpiWhSyCo|website=British Listed Buildings|access-date=3 October 2017}}</ref>

==Buildings== The following buildings are on Tavistock Square: * Tavistock House, home of James Burton while he developed the area and then of Charles Dickens, was on the east side of the square. A blue plaque on BMA House commemorates him. It was demolished in 1901.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=65184 |title='Tavistock House', Survey of London: volume 21: The parish of St Pancras part 3: Tottenham Court Road & neighbourhood |year=1949|page=99-100|access-date=9 January 2010}}</ref> * "BMA House", the headquarters of the British Medical Association, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens in 1911<ref>{{Cite web|title=About|url=https://bmahouse.org.uk/about/|access-date=2020-12-28|website=BMA|language=en-GB}}</ref> is on the east side (on the site previously occupied by Tavistock House) and is a grade II listed building.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bmahouse.org.uk |title=Where to Find Us|publisher=BMA House|access-date=27 June 2015}}</ref> *Connaught Hall, a University of London hall of residence, which was built in the early 19th century, is on the west side of the square and is a grade II listed building.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://halls.london.ac.uk/connaught-hall|title=Connaught Hall|publisher= University of London|access-date=15 July 2018}}</ref> * Woburn House, on the north side of the square contains the headquarters of Universities UK, the conference of university rectors, and the headquarters of the Medical Schools Council, an organisation which represents the interests and ambitions of UK medical schools.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.medschools.ac.uk/|title=Our address|publisher=Medical Schools Council|access-date=15 July 2018}}</ref> * The Tavistock Hotel, a branch of Imperial London Hotels, completed in 1951 is on the south side of the square.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.travelweekly.com/Hotels/London/Tavistock-Hotel-p4285517 |title=Tavistock Hotel|newspaper=Travel Weekly|access-date= 27 June 2015}}</ref> *Lynton House<ref>{{Cite web|title=Lynton House|url=https://www.globalholdings-mgmt.com/property/lynton-house-london/|access-date=2020-12-28|website=Global Holdings|language=en-US}}</ref> and Tavis House,<ref>{{Cite web|title=Age UK Camden {{!}} Contact us|url=https://www.ageuk.org.uk/camden/about-us/contact-us/|access-date=2020-12-28|website=www.ageuk.org.uk}}</ref> both substantial red-brick office blocks on the east side, were built in the mid-20th century.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.camden.gov.uk/ccm/cms-service/download/asset?asset_id=2694014|title=Bloomsbury Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy|date=18 April 2011|publisher=Camden Council|access-date=15 July 2018|archive-date=15 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150915164735/http://www.camden.gov.uk/ccm/cms-service/download/asset/?asset_id=2694014|url-status=dead}}</ref> *Passfield Hall, a hall of residence for undergraduates of the London School of Economics.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.lse.ac.uk/student-life/accommodation/halls/passfield-hall|title=Passfield Hall|date=2 April 2020|publisher=London School of Economics|access-date=2 April 2020}}</ref>

==Gallery== <gallery> File:Mahatma Gandhi (geograph 2952261).jpg|Statue of Mahatma Gandhi in the centre of the square File:Tavistock Square.jpg|Panoramic photo of the square File:Hiroshima Tree base with blossums, Tavistock Sq Gardens.jpg|Plaque at the base of the Hiroshima cherry tree amid fallen blossoms File:DSCN1999TavistockSqConcObj.jpg|Conscientious Objectors Commemorative Stone, on the north side of the square File:Conscientious Objector memorial, Tavistock Sq Gardens.jpg|Conscientious Objectors Stone inscription File:Louisa Aldrich-Blake's monument, London - 03.jpg|Memorial to Louisa Aldrich-Blake File:Dickens-plaque-tavistock.jpg|Blue plaque on BMA House commemorating Dickens and Tavistock House </gallery>

==References== {{Reflist}}

==External links== *{{gbmaprim|TQ298823|Map sources and aerial photos}}.

{{Bloomsbury}} {{University College London|university}} {{coord|51.5250|-0.1291|type:landmark_region:GB-CMD|display=title}}

Category:Squares in the London Borough of Camden Category:July 2005 London bombings Category:Bloomsbury Category:James Burton (property developer) buildings Category:Garden squares in London Category:Bloomsbury Group locations