Mecklenburgh Square

Coordinates: 51°31′28″N 0°7′7″W / 51.52444°N 0.11861°W / 51.52444; -0.11861

Corner of Mecklenburgh Square and Mecklenburgh Street

Plaque on number 44

Mecklenburgh Square is a Grade II listed square located in the King's Cross area of central London. The Square and its garden were part of the Foundling Estate, a residential development of 1792–1825 on fields surrounding and owned by the Foundling Hospital. The Square was named in honour of King George III’s Queen, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. It was begun in 1804, but was not completed until 1825.^[1]

It is notable for the number of historic terraced houses that face directly onto the square and the Mecklenburgh Square Garden. Access to the garden is only permitted to resident keyholders, except on two days a year when it is open to all visitors for Open Garden Squares Weekend.^[2][3]

The garden was laid out and planted between 1809 and 1810 as the centrepiece of the newly developed Mecklenburgh Square. The 2 acres (8,100 m²) garden is made up of formal lawns, gravel paths, mature plane trees and other ornamental trees. It contains a children's playground,and a tennis court. The east side of the garden is planted with plants native to New Zealand.^[4]

To the west is Coram's Fields, a playground for children, and to the east is Gray's Inn Road, a major thoroughfare for the area. Goodenough College is a postgraduate residence and educational trust on the north and south sides of the square, and operates an academic-oriented hotel on the east side.

Russell Square tube station is located to the south-west of the square, and the major railway terminus of King's Cross-St Pancras is a short walk north.

Notable residents

• Samuel Parkes (chemist) died here on 23 December 1825.^[5]
• Karl Pearson lived at no. 40 as a child from 1866 to 1875.
• At no. 21 there is a blue plaque for R. H. Tawney (1880 – 1962), historian.^[6] In the same doorway is a blue plaque for Sir Syed Ahmed Khan (1817–1898), who lived there from 1869 to 1870.^[7]
• At no. 44 there is a plaque (though not an English Heritage one) for H.D. (Hilda Doolittle 1886 – 1961), the American poet, who lived there from 1917 to 1918.^[8]
• Virginia Woolf lived at no. 37 from 1939 to 1940. The house was bombed in a German air raid in 1940 and replaced in 1957 by William Goodenough House^[9] at Goodenough College.

References

Bloomsbury Buildings Barbadian H.C. Brunswick Centre Church of Christ the King Connaught Hall Goodenough College Hotel Russell The Lamb Montagu House Senate House St. George's St George the Martyr Holborn St Pancras New Church UCL Main Building Squares and parks Bedford Square Bloomsbury Square Brunswick Square Cartwright Gardens Coram's Fields Gordon Square Mecklenburgh Square Queen Square Russell Square Tavistock Square Torrington Square Woburn Square Roads Cartwright Gardens Gower Street Great Russell Street Guilford Street Gray's Inn Road Lamb's Conduit Street Malet Street Museum Street Southampton Row Woburn Place History The Bedford Estate Bloomsbury Gang Bloomsbury Group

In Dorothy L. Sayers' last novel but one, entitled Gaudy Night, the lead character, Harriet Vane, has an apartment on Mecklenburgh Square. She had moved from there from a presumably smaller flat on Doughty Street.