Charterhouse Square

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Charterhouse Hospital in around 1770.

Tudor buildings of Charterhouse.

View of Charterhouse Square campus, Queen Mary, University of London.

Charterhouse Square is a historic square in Smithfield, between Charterhouse Street and Clerkenwell Road, to the north of the City of London.

The Charterhouse is on the site of a former Carthusian monastery founded in 1371, by Walter de Manny, on what is now the north side of the square. It was established near a 1348 plague pit, located in the square, which formed the largest mass grave in London during the Black Death when around half the population died of the plague. Tens of thousands of bodies were buried here. The name is derived as an Anglicisation of La Grande Chartreuse, whose order founded the monastery^[1].

The Charterhouse was dissolved as a monastery in 1537, and redeveloped as Howard House for the Earl of Suffolk^[1]. Elizabeth I prepared for her coronation here, and in 1603, James I held court here on his arrival in London.

Thomas Sutton bought Howard House, and on his death in 1611, endowed a hospital on the site of the Charterhouse, to be named after King James. He bequeathed money to support an almshouse/hospital, chapel and school. The almshouse opened in 1614, for the support of eighty pensioners (known as 'brothers'). In addition to the Almshouses, some of the buildings were used by Charterhouse School, now a prestigious public school, until 1872 when the school moved to Godalming in Surrey south-west of London, and then the Merchant Taylors' School until 1933. At its foundation, the school provided all the necessities for boys between 10 and 15 years old to be fed, clothed and instructed in classic learning, writing and arithmetic at the sole expense of the charity^[1]. The charity also provided exhibitions to Oxbridge, and arranged apprenticeships for the boys.

The Charterhouse Square campus of Queen Mary, University of London is situated to the north-east of the square. This includes student accommodation and departments of Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry.

Florin Court is a residential building in the Art Deco style on the eastern side of the square, built in 1936 by Guy Morgan and Partners. It was used as the fictional residence of Hercule Poirot, Whitehaven Mansions^[2], in the 1980s TV series based on Agatha Christie's crime novels. The building has a curved facade, roof garden and basement swimming pool^[3].

The independent preparatory Charterhouse Square School is at 40 Charterhouse Square, on the south side of the square.

Smithfield Market is to the south-west along Charterhouse Street.

The nearest underground station is the Barbican tube station to the south-east.