And so to the yellows, the 'entertainment' corner of the Monopoly board. One theory has it that their ordered sequence represents a tip-top West End night out (film in Leicester Square, cocktail in Coventry Street, hotel in Piccadilly) but this may merely be millennial supposition. The trio kicks off with a famous piazza that isn't actually square, more kite-shaped, and which has its roots in the 17th century long before the invention of celluloid, bottomless brunch and LEGO. I intend to focus solely on Leicester Square itself, not its environs, starting in the centre and working outwards to focus on each flank separately.
Leicester Square started out as part of the grounds of Leicester House, a large townhouse built for the Earl of Leicester in 1635, approximately on the site of modern Chinatown. Local parishioners resented the loss of common land so it was agreed that a squarish patch to the south would retain public access and this became Leicester Fields, on pretty much exactly the same footprint as today. Smart houses encircled the square in the 18th century, whose allure gradually declined as shops, entertainment venues and the inevitable brothels took their place. Many of these were ultimately replaced by some of London's most prestigious cinemas, and this week all three are screening Alien Romulus and It Ends With Us accompanied by pic'n'mix and nachos.
A statue of George I used to stand in the centre of the square but this proved troublesome when a Victorian entrepreneur wanted to build The Great Globe instead, a huge lamplit sphere designed to showcase the geographical wonders of the planet. He built it anyway, burying George's statue 12 foot deep underground, only for his globular attraction to fail commercially and end up being sold for scrap. This provided the impetus for a complete renovation of the central gardens in 1874, so the centrepiece is now a marble fountain topped with a statue of William Shakespeare. The surrounding circular flowerbed is easily the prettiest part of the square, not that tourists' cameras generally seek it out.
The central gardens had a spruce-up around the time of the Olympics, which also introduced a lockable perimeter allowing this area to be sealed off for film premieres, gingerbread chalets or any other LSQ events. Look up and the plane trees are old enough to be sensational, but look down and the shabbiness of a lawn created from matted squares of threadbare grass is all too apparent. If you're ever caught short in the West End be aware that steps in the two northern corners lead down to public conveniences, although the real subterranean secret is hinted at by the temporary UK Power Networks hoardings to the south. One of central London's largest electricity substations was installed beneath Leicester Square in 1991, its three 132,000-volt transformers recently in need of replacement, and the remediation works are finally due to end next month.
What truly delights the average family visiting the square are the bronze statues of nine Hollywood icons, most of which can be found in the gardens or around the perimeter shrubbery. Here Gene Kelly swings from a lamppost, Bugs Bunny emerges from a burrow and Mary Poppins has just landed with her umbrella raised, while Mr Bean and Paddington Bear sit alone on a bench silently urging you to sit alongside. The most popular of the lot is Harry Potter on a broom, from quite early in the franchise, where snappers may have to bide their time while a queue of offspring take their turn to grin in front. But look around more carefully and you may also spot Laurel and Hardy on the roof of the tickets kiosk, Batman standing high above everything on the roof of the Odeon and Wonder Woman whirling her magic lasso on a wall in Leicester Court (so technically out of scope of this post). If you're genuinely interested, Alex Zane narrates an audio walking tour on Spotify.
North side
Let's start our outer circumnavigation on the north side because that's where the official numbering begins, with 1 Leicester Square being home to a very recent very popular Greggs. The largest building is the Empire Theatre, built in 1884 to host variety shows and ballet, then rebuilt in 1927 as a massive cinema auditorium. As the Empire Leicester Square it still boasts the UK's widest cinema screen, now IMAXed, even if the stalls have been increasingly hollowed out to create projection booths, teensier auditoria and a former dance hall that's now a casino. The security guards positioned out front are probably most concerned about the latter. Neighbouring outlets flog things like souvenir snowglobes, flavoured vapes and bland waffles squirted with froth, whereas obviously the culinary apotheosis hereabouts was when Baskin Robbins sold 31 flavours.
East side
The unmissable building on the eastern flank is the Odeon cinema, or the Odeon Luxe Leicester Square as they insist on calling it these days, built in 1937 on the site of the Alhambra Music Hall. Its Art Deco tower acts as a local landmark, its facade is fronted with black polished granite and its interior ambience has been lessened somewhat by a succession of insensitive modernisations. That said it still seats 800 making it officially the UK's largest single-screen cinema (so long as you ignore screens 2-4 which are tiny boxes squeezed later into a former alleyway). The ground level units to either side of the Odeon are almost all restaurants, from lowly Burger King to juicy wagyu, plus the ultimate tourist pile-in, a TGI Fridays. But look out for the small doorway at the far end which once led just to the studios of Capital Radio and now acts as HQ for Global, the predatory media company inexorably consuming UK commercial radio.
South side
This side is rather less interesting, sequential redevelopment having merged several buildings into just two. The most recent is the square's other Odeon, the Odeon Luxe West End, though not the 1930 original because a hotel company bought that in 2014 and promptly demolished it so they could plonk a garish ribbed abomination on top. Many's the time I trooped down to the basement for a PG or 15 presentation, but I must confess I don't feel the need to revisit the two-screen Dolby replacement. I have however spent a very interesting afternoon in the Radisson nextdoor, specifically on the fourth floor, too preoccupied to realise that the surrounding architecture was essentially Edwardian. If you're considering a visit to the tkts cut-price ticket booth opposite, be aware that their best price for The Mousetrap is still a whopping £42.50 whereas you might get into both halves of The Cursed Child for £15 apiece.
West side
The portrait painter Joshua Reynolds lived and died here at number 47, as a plaque on All Bar One attests. The building now on site is Fanum House, built in 1923 as the Automobile Association's HQ and designed by cinema architect Andrew Mather. The AA scarpered to Basingstoke in 1972 and their reception area is now occupied by the world's largest LEGO store, a brickfest dozens of families are happy to queue for if it means getting a proper glimpse of the giant landmark models within. Outside is a 'Cantonal Tree' supported on a antique inn sign gifted by the Swiss government to the Queen on the occasion of her Silver Jubilee. The adjacent glockenspiel clock with 27 bells was instead a gift to Westminster council in 1985 and never performs its chimes before noon, nor after 8pm, nor at 1pm. Alas the Swiss Centre was demolished in 2008 and on its site arose London's most vacuous tourist destination, the inexplicable M&M's World, whose address I see isn't officially in Leicester Square which is great because it means I can ignore it and end my circuit there.
