45 Squared 35) QUEEN SQUARE, WC1
Borough of Camden, 150m×40m
The Queen in question is Queen Anne, the Square built soon after her death so named in her honour. It's in Bloomsbury close to Russell Square station, but tucked one street back from the main drag so generally unvisited. It's also exceptionally oblong, almost four times as long as it is wide, and over the years has become increasingly surrounded by all things medical. As is so often the case the 'square' was originally built on the very edge of London, and in this case took advantage of the fact. Tall terraces of elegant townhouses were built along three sides with the northern edge left empty so that residents could enjoy the vista across Conduit Fields. This scenic gap lasted until the end of the 18th century when Upper Guilford Street got in the way, but a sense of long distance perspective somehow lingers.
At the southern end of the Square is a paved area that's actually square with a fine lamplit water pump at its centre, this very early Victorian. Four bollards and a ring of cobbles surround it, these originally to keep vehicles at bay because the paving slabs beyond are relatively recent. It no longer dispenses water but the Mayor has kindly provided a plastic water fountain with a blue droplet on top which looks jarringly out of place. The most recent addition is a new timber hut for Queen's Coffee, unshuttered in the last few days, although the art on the back featuring a Grenadier Guard and a seated child is gratingly twee and I'd stick with a pastry round the front. For a finer work of art, look out for the Snoopy and Woodstock postbox topper on the corner with Great Ormond Street.
In the southeastern corner is the church of St George The Martyr, in Wren-like Queen Anne style, although the tower and outer frontage are later additions. Its chief claims to fame are that it's where Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath got married, this because at the time it was his parish church, also two centuries earlier its rector was William Stukeley, the antiquarian who did a lot of the early investigations at Stonehenge. Normally you can step inside as far as a cosy cafe carved out of one corner but I turned up as Morning Service was getting underway so couldn't peer much further than the glass doors. It's quite the classical space.
A few of the original houses remain, as proudly Georgian as you'd expect, of which the finest may be number 6 where the front door of the Art Workers Guild is framed by two monogrammed lamps. But there's also a lot of later replacement, all tall, be it brick, terracotta, concrete or glass. And if you read the nameplates a heck of a lot of that is medical, including the Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and the Sight And Sound Centre (Supported By Premier Inn). Brains feature a lot, and have done ever since George III stayed privately on Queen Square with his mental health specialist Dr Willis. The busy National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery now overlooks the entirety of the eastern flank.
The finest feature is probably the central garden, a long shrubbery-bound space with grass, flowerbeds, umpteen benches and even more pigeons. The benches are particularly popular with medical staff taking a break mid-shift, and much more pleasant than your average smokers' hangout. In opposite corners are the utterly contrasting statues of Lord Wolfson, businessman and philanthropist, and Sam, a cat. The statue of a queen watches over everything from one end, long believed to be Queen Anne for nominal reasons, but the plaque underneath says it's now thought to be Queen Charlotte. I particularly liked the floral urn celebrating Queen Elizabeth's silver jubilee with a verse by Larkin on one side and a verse by Hughes on the other. It's all queens in Queen Square.
