75-536: The Poetry Bookshop operated at 35 Devonshire Street (now Boswell Street) in the Bloomsbury district of central London , from 1913 to 1926 . It was the brainchild of Harold Monro , and was supported by his moderate income. The Bookshop not only sold, but also published, poetry by living poets. Readers were encouraged to browse, and several poets actually made their home there, including Wilfred Owen , Wilfrid Wilson Gibson and Robert Frost . The atmosphere
150-859: A cafe and a restaurant. Since 1998, the British Library has been located in a purpose-built building just outside the northern edge of Bloomsbury, in Euston Road. Also in Bloomsbury is the Foundling Museum, close to Brunswick Square, which tells the story of the Foundling Hospital opened by Thomas Coram for unwanted children in Georgian London. The hospital, now demolished except for the Georgian colonnade ,
225-421: A circus here but he died in 1771, leaving his wife to continue development of the area. She commissioned the construction of Bedford Square and of Gower Street . The major development of the squares that we see today started in about 1800 when Francis Russell, 5th Duke of Bedford , demolished Bedford House and developed the land to the north with Russell Square as its centrepiece. Much is still owned today by
300-613: A few years attempted to interest a publisher in a book on the shop. Her letters reveal the amount of work she did, some of which was useful to her when she wrote her biography of Charlotte Mew. 51°31′15″N 0°7′17″W / 51.52083°N 0.12139°W / 51.52083; -0.12139 Bloomsbury Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London , part of the London Borough of Camden in England. It
375-473: A haircut or shave; on the steps, below the woman who has let her baby fall, a skeletal pamphlet-seller rests, perhaps dead of starvation, as the unsold moralising pamphlet on the evils of gin-drinking, The Downfall of Mrs Gin , slips from his basket. Set in St Giles, the etching shows a boy, Nero, is being assisted by other boys torturing a dog by inserting an arrow into its rectum . An initialled badge on
450-458: A northern limit of Euston Road is often understood, though Coram's Fields and the land to the north, consisting mainly of blocks of flats, built as both private and social housing was traditionally associated as being north Bloomsbury with Judd Street and its surrounding squares being part of St Pancras, King's Cross. The eastern boundary is sometimes taken to be in the region of Southampton Row or further east on Grays Inn Road. The southern extent
525-606: A part of Bloomsbury. Points of interest include the church of St Giles in the Fields , Seven Dials , the Phoenix Garden , and St Giles Circus . There has been a church at St Giles since Saxon times, located beside a major highway. The hospital of St Giles , recorded c. 1120 as Hospitali Sancti Egidii extra Londonium was founded, together with a monastery and a chapel, by Queen Matilda , wife of Henry I . St Giles ( c. 650 – c. 710 )
600-564: A part of the parish of Holborn when St Giles hospital was established in the early 1100s. The earliest record of the name, Bloomsbury, is as Blemondisberi in 1281. It is named after a member of the Blemund family who held the manor. There are older records relating to the family in London in 1201 and 1230. Their name, Blemund, derives from Blemont, a place in Vienne , in western France. At
675-427: A toddler burn to death while she slept in a gin-induced stupor. Other images of despair and madness fill the scene: a lunatic cavorts in the street beating himself over the head with a pair of bellows while holding a baby impaled on a spike—the dead child's frantic mother rushes from the house screaming in horror; a barber has taken his own life in the dilapidated attic of his barber-shop, ruined because nobody can afford
750-535: A vibrant area to visit, and a profitable place in which to do business". Several London railway stations serve Bloomsbury. There are three London Underground stations in Bloomsbury: King's Cross St. Pancras station offers step-free access to all lines, whilst Euston Square offers step-free access to the westbound platform. Other stations nearby include: Euston , Warren Street , Goodge Street , Tottenham Court Road , Holborn and Chancery Lane . There
825-541: A year after conservation areas were promulgated in the Civic Amenities Act 1967. The Bloomsbury Conservation Area is almost unique in the UK in that it also has a conservation area advisory committee , an expert committee of architects, planners, lawyers, and other community members that also live and work in Bloomsbury. This group was founded in 1968 by the local authority and continues to serve Bloomsbury and
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#1732782628719900-807: Is a disused station in Bloomsbury on the Piccadilly line at the British Museum . There are also three National Rail stations to the north of Bloomsbury: Eurostar services to France , Brussels and the Netherlands begin in London at St Pancras. Several bus stops can be found in Bloomsbury. All buses passing through Bloomsbury call at bus stops on Russell Square , Gower Street or Tottenham Court Road . Several key London destinations can be reached from Bloomsbury directly, including: Camden Town , Greenwich , Hampstead Heath , Piccadilly Circus , Victoria , and Waterloo . Euston bus station
975-700: Is also home to London Contemporary Dance School , Royal Academy of Dramatic Art , a branch of University of Law, Architectural Association School of Architecture , and the London campuses of several American colleges including Arcadia University , University of California , University of Delaware , Florida State University , Syracuse University , New York University , and Hult International Business School . The growing private tutoring sector in Bloomsbury includes various tutoring businesses such as Bloomsbury International (for English language), Bloomsbury Law Tutors (for law education), Skygate Tutors, and Topmark Tutors Centre. The British Museum , which first opened to
1050-570: Is an area in London , England and is located in the London Borough of Camden . It is in Central London and part of the West End . The area gets its name from the parish church of St Giles in the Fields . The combined parishes of St Giles in the Fields and St George Bloomsbury (which was carved out of the former) were administered jointly for many centuries, leading to the conflation of the two, with much or all of St Giles usually taken to be
1125-532: Is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural , intellectual, and educational institutions . Bloomsbury is home of the British Museum , the largest museum in the United Kingdom, and several educational institutions, including University College London and a number of other colleges and institutes of the University of London as well as its central headquarters,
1200-483: Is currently protected by the designation of a conservation area and a locally based conservation committee. Despite this, there is increasing concern about a trend towards larger and less sensitive development, and the associated demolition of Victorian and Georgian buildings. Bloomsbury (including the closely linked St Giles area) has a long association with neighbouring Holborn ; but is nearly always considered as distinct from Holborn. The area appears to have been
1275-651: Is home to the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery (formerly the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases). Bloomsbury is also the location of University College Hospital , which re-opened in 2005 in new buildings on Euston Road, built under the government's private finance initiative (PFI). The Eastman Dental Hospital is located on Gray's Inn Road close to the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital administered by
1350-535: Is home to the federal University of London's central administrative centre and library, Senate House, as well as many of its independent members institutions including Birkbeck College, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, School of Oriental and African Studies, School of Advanced Study, Royal Veterinary College, and University College London (which has now absorbed the formerly separate School of Eastern European and Slavonic Studies, School of Pharmacy, and Institute of Education academic institutions). Bloomsbury
1425-591: Is on 15-20 Phoenix Place. Bloomsbury contains several notable churches: Bloomsbury contains some of London's finest parks and buildings, and is particularly known for its formal squares. These include: Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children and the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine (formerly the Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital) are both located on Great Ormond Street, off Queen Square, which itself
1500-457: Is taken to approximates to High Holborn or the thoroughfare formed by New Oxford Street , Bloomsbury Way and Theobalds Road. On the west side, the traditional and various informal definitions of the area are all based on the ancient Tottenham Court Road . The differences between the formal and more recent understandings of the area (to the north and south), seem to derive from Bloomsbury having been commonly misconceived as being coterminous with
1575-496: Is to the north of Bloomsbury. One of the 13 surviving taxi drivers' shelters in London, where drivers can stop for a meal and a drink, is in Russell Square. Bloomsbury's road network links the district to several destinations across London. Key routes nearby include: Gower Street , which runs through the area on a north–south axis, has been two-way since Sunday 28 February 2021. St Giles, London St Giles
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#17327826287191650-606: Is today a playground and outdoor sports field for children, called Coram's Fields . It is also home to a small number of sheep. The nearby Lamb's Conduit Street is a pleasant thoroughfare with shops, cafes and restaurants. The Dickens Museum is in Doughty Street . The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology and the Grant Museum of Zoology are at University College London in Gower Street. The Postal Museum
1725-570: The Bedford Estate in trust for the Russell family. John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford , extended development on the north and east side of the estate, this area would then be frequented by writers, painters and musicians as well as lawyers due to the nearby Inns of Court . The area was enclosed by gates until these were abolished under a 1893 Act of Parliament. In the 19th century, the Bloomsbury area became less fashionable, now dominated by
1800-559: The Bedford Estate . In the early 1660s, the Earl of Southampton , who held the manors of St Giles and Bloomsbury, constructed what eventually became Bloomsbury Square . The Yorkshire Grey public house on the corner of Gray's Inn Road and Theobald's Road dates from 1676. The estate passed to the Russell family following the marriage of William Russell, Lord Russell (1639–1683) (third son of William Russell, 1st Duke of Bedford ) to Rachel Wriothesley , heiress of Bloomsbury, younger of
1875-902: The New College of the Humanities , the University of Law , the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art , the British Medical Association and many others. Bloomsbury is an intellectual and literary hub for London, as home of world-known Bloomsbury Publishing , publishers of the Harry Potter series, and namesake of the Bloomsbury Group , a group of British intellectuals which included author Virginia Woolf , biographer Lytton Strachey , and economist John Maynard Keynes . Bloomsbury began to be developed in
1950-612: The Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust . One of the largest building in the area is the Brutalist Brunswick Centre a residential building with a shopping centre at ground floor. Bloomsbury is in the parliamentary constituency of Holborn and St Pancras . The western half of the district comprises Bloomsbury ward , which elects three councillors to Camden Borough Council . In February 2010, businesses were balloted on an expansion of
2025-668: The Times in 1849: "We live in muck and filth. We aint got no priviz , no dust bins, no drains, no water-splies , and no drain or suer in the hole place". The rookery was a maze of gin shops, prostitutes' hovels and secret alleyways that police had little hope of navigating. William Hogarth , Thomas Rowlandson , and Gustave Doré , among others, drew the area, as did novelists Henry Fielding and Charles Dickens . Romance novelists Elizabeth Hoyt and Erica Monroe wrote about it extensively in their Maiden Lane and Rookery Rogues series, respectively. Peter Ackroyd writes "The Rookeries embodied
2100-606: The University of London and the British Museum as well as numerous new hospitals. Modern development has destroyed several Georgian -era buildings, but some remain. The London Beer Flood (also known as the Great Beer Flood ) was a disaster that occurred in October 1814, when a large vat of porter at the Horse Shoe Brewery , just west of Dyott Street, burst open, releasing a 15-foot wave of beer onto
2175-503: The 17th century under the Earls of Southampton , but it was primarily in the 19th century, under the Duke of Bedford , that the district was planned and built as an affluent Regency era residential area by famed developer James Burton . The district is known for its numerous garden squares , including Bloomsbury Square , Russell Square and Bedford Square . Bloomsbury's built heritage
2250-486: The 18th and 19th centuries, so did the parish's population, rising to 30,000 by 1831. Irish migrants escaping the Great Famine (Ireland) during 1845 and 1849 were a significant source of new inhabitants in the parish. The expression "a St Giles cellar" passed into common parlance, describing the worst conditions of poverty. Open sewers often ran through rooms and cesspits were left untended. Residents complained to
2325-714: The Central District Alliance business improvement district . It is within the Holborn and St Pancras Parliament constituency and the Barnet and Camden London Assembly constituency. The Central London Railway (CLR) opened Tottenham Court Tube Station, between the Church of St Giles in the Fields and St Giles Circus, on 30 July 1900. Tottenham Court Road underwent improvements in the early 1930s to replace lifts with escalators. The station had four entrances to
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2400-697: The InHolborn Business Improvement District (BID) to include the southern part of Bloomsbury. Only businesses with a rateable value in excess of £60,000 could vote as only these would pay the BID levy. This expansion of the BID into Bloomsbury was supported by Camden Council. The proposal was passed and part of Bloomsbury was brought within the InHolborn BID. Controversy was raised during this BID renewal when InHolborn proposed collecting Bloomsbury, St Giles and Holborn under
2475-555: The Poor Law in 1930; however it was not formally abolished until the creation of Greater London in 1965. In 1900 the area of the St Giles District (Metropolis) merged with Holborn District (Metropolis) (excluding those parts of Finsbury Division which had been temporarily attached to Holborn) to form a new Metropolitan Borough of Holborn . The traditional boundaries of St Giles and Bloomsbury were used for wards in
2550-441: The alcoholic residents of the street in return for a few pennies to feed their habit; and the undertaker, for whom Hogarth implies at least a handful of new customers from this scene alone. Most shockingly, the focus of the picture is a woman in the foreground, who, addled by gin and driven to prostitution by her habit —as evidenced by the syphilitic sores on her legs— lets her baby slip unheeded from her arms and plunge to its death in
2625-409: The boy in the foreground struts around in his finery while the boy with his back to the viewer has his hair in a net, bagged up in the "French" style. At the far right, a black man, probably a freed slave, fondles the breasts of a woman, distracting her from her work, her pie-dish "tottering like her virtue". In front of the couple, a boy has set down his pie to rest, but the plate has broken, spilling
2700-453: The church of St Giles in the Fields . Some sources indicate that the parish was in place before 1222 while others suggest 1547. From 1597 onwards, English parishes were obliged to take on a civil as well as ecclesiastical role, starting with the relief of the poor . In 1731 a small new independent parish of Bloomsbury was created, based on a small area round Bloomsbury Square . In 1774 these parishes recombined, for civil purposes, to form
2775-418: The combined parish of St Giles in the Fields and St George Bloomsbury (as adjusted in some places to reflect the modern street pattern) include Tottenham Court Road to the west, Torrington Place (formerly known, in part, as Francis Street) to the north, the borough boundary to the south and Marchmont Street and Southampton Row to the east. The western boundary of Tottenham Court Road is common to all and
2850-605: The construction of tall and harmful development. Between 2015 and 2020 the local authority recommended approval for a total of five major developments judged to be harmful by the BCAAC, with the Greater London Authority approving one. The BCAAC were only successful in defeating one of those developments. As a result, Victorian buildings and even some of Bloomsbury's famous Georgian terraces have been demolished in recent years. This has led to sharp criticism of
2925-550: The early 1100s. The date when the Ancient Parish of St Giles was formed is not clear. Some sources indicate that the parish was in place before 1222 while others suggest 1547. From 1597 onwards, English parishes were obliged to take on a civil as well as ecclesiastical role, starting with the relief of the poor . The parish formed part of the Ossulstone hundred of Middlesex . The parish of St George Bloomsbury
3000-598: The early 1900s, and to the lesser known Bloomsbury Gang of Whigs formed in 1765 by John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford . The publisher Faber & Faber used to be located in Queen Square , though at the time T. S. Eliot was editor the offices were in Tavistock Square. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded in John Millais's parents' house on Gower Street in 1848. The Bloomsbury Festival
3075-460: The effect of pushing the slum further south, into the Seven Dials , which fell into further decline. The unchanging character of the area, failing investment schemes and inability to sell new properties ensured that plans for wholesale clearance were stymied until the end of the century. The area appears to have been a part of the parish of Holborn when St Giles hospital was established in
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3150-741: The end of the 14th century, Edward III acquired Blemond's manor, and passed it on to the Carthusian monks of the London Charterhouse . The area remained rural at this time. In the 16th century with the Dissolution of the Monasteries , Henry VIII took the land back into the possession of the Crown and granted it to Thomas Wriothesley, 1st Earl of Southampton . The area was part of the Ancient Parish of St Giles , served by
3225-484: The first victims were buried in the St Giles churchyard. By September 1665, 8,000 people were dying a week in London. By the end of the plague year there were 3,216 listed plague deaths in St Giles parish, which had fewer than 2,000 households. After the Restoration , the area was populated by Huguenot refugees who had fled persecution and established themselves as tradesmen and artisans, particularly in weaving and
3300-430: The graveyard ran out of space. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, many were buried in the cemeteries surrounding St Pancras . From the 1830s to the 1870s plans were developed to demolish the slum as part of London wide clearances for improved transport routes, sanitation and the expansion of the railways. New Oxford Street was driven through the slum to join the areas of Oxford Street and Holborn. This had
3375-494: The landowner at the time, and by long leases held by developers who had no incentive to improve the houses they had built decades earlier. It was regarded as one of the worst slums within Britain, often described as a site of overcrowding and squalor, a semi-derelict warren. It was known for having a large Irish Catholic population, and took on a number of nicknames including "Little Ireland" and "The Holy Land". As London grew in
3450-603: The local authority's approach to the conservation and preservation of Bloomsbury, with national heritage groups such as the Victorian Society and Georgian Group voicing concerns along with local groups. A local campaign associated with the BCAAC, Save Bloomsbury, has written and campaigned extensively to protect Bloomsbury's heritage. As of 2021 Camden Council has not adopted any strategy to ensure Bloomsbury's conservation, and harmful development proposals continue to come forward. Neighbouring areas include St Pancras to
3525-464: The local authority's constitution. Bloomsbury contains one of the highest proportions of listed buildings and monuments per square metre of any conservation area, including many of the UK's most iconic buildings, such as the British Museum. However its strategic location in the centre of London and associated high development pressures has seen a rise in the demolition of historic fabric, and
3600-417: The main road from Holborn to Tyburn , a place of local execution. Convicted criminals were often allowed, in tradition, to stop at St Giles en route to Tyburn for a final drink – a "St Giles Bowl" – before hanging. The rookery originally stood on a five-acre plot in the north west of the parish, bounded by Great Russell Street in the north, Tottenham Court Road in the west, St Giles High Street in
3675-554: The mid-sixteenth century, when the disease abated and the hospital instead began to care for indigents. The parish was known as St Giles in the Fields and it is recorded in 1563 as Seynt Gyles in the Field . The first post-Catholic parish church was built in 1631 and from the mid-seventeenth century church wardens note "a great influx of poor people into this parish". The cellars in particular were already recorded as horrific places in which whole families resided, "damp and unwholesome" as
3750-492: The middle of the worst part of its slums—"the Rookery"—yet, especially on the south side, there still are streets which demand to be swept away in the interest of health and cleanliness... They [are] a noisy and riotous lot, fond of street brawls, equally "fat, ragged and saucy"; and the courts abound in pedlars, fish-women, newscriers, and corn-cutters. Due to the high mortality rate, especially from cholera and tuberculosis ,
3825-426: The name of "Midtown", since it was seen as "too American". Businesses were informed about the BID proposals, but there was little consultation with residents or voluntary organisations. InHolborn produced a comprehensive business plan aimed at large businesses. Bloomsbury is now part of InMidtown BID with its 2010 to 2015 business plan and a stated aim to make the area "a quality environment in which to work and live,
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#17327826287193900-521: The new borough, though these were subject to minor rationalisations to reflect the modern street pattern rather than the historic basis of the older streets and pre-urban field boundaries. The combined civil parish continued to operate, in parallel, for a considerable time after. In 1965 the Metropolitan Borough of Holborn merged with St Pancras and Hampstead to form the new London Borough of Camden . The formal historic boundaries of
3975-401: The north and west, Fitzrovia to the west, Covent Garden and Holborn to the south, and Clerkenwell to the east. For street name etymologies see Street names of Bloomsbury . Historically, Bloomsbury is associated with the arts, education, and medicine. The area gives its name to the Bloomsbury Group of artists, among whom was Virginia Woolf , who met in private homes in the area in
4050-650: The north, Shaftesbury Avenue to the south-east and Charing Cross Road to the west. The etching "Noon" from Four Times of the Day by Hogarth takes place in Hog Lane, with the church of St Giles in the Fields in the background. Hogarth would feature St Giles again as the background of Gin Lane and First Stage of Cruelty . The picture shows the Huguenot refugees who arrived in the 1680s and established themselves in
4125-495: The parish of St Giles in the Fields and St George Bloomsbury – which had the same boundaries as the initial parish of St Giles . The area of the combined civil parish was used for the St Giles District (Metropolis) , established under the Metropolis Management Act 1855 . This body managed certain infrastructure functions, while the civil parish continued with its responsibilities until the abolishment of
4200-422: The pie onto the ground where it is being rapidly consumed by an urchin. Set in St Giles, Gin Lane depicts the squalor and despair of a community raised on gin. The only businesses that flourish are those which serve the gin industry: gin sellers; distillers; the pawnbroker where the avaricious Mr. Gripe greedily takes the vital possessions (the carpenter offers his saw and the housewife her cooking utensils) of
4275-545: The public in 1759 in Montagu House , is at the heart of Bloomsbury. At the centre of the museum the space around the former British Library Reading Room , which was filled with the concrete storage bunkers of the British Library, is today the Queen Elizabeth II Great Court , an indoor square with a glass roof designed by British architect Norman Foster . It houses displays, a cinema, a shop,
4350-542: The shoulder of his light-hued and ragged coat shows him to be a pupil of the charity school of the parish of St Giles. A more tender-hearted boy, perhaps the dog's owner, pleads with Nero to stop tormenting the frightened animal, even offering food in an attempt to appease him. St Giles is split between the electoral wards of Bloomsbury and Holborn and Covent Garden in the London Borough of Camden. With some sections of Holborn and Bloomsbury it forms part of
4425-565: The silk trade. The southern area of the parish, around present day Shaftesbury Avenue, was a wasteland named Cock and Pye Fields. Houses were not built there until 1666, after the Great Fire, and not fully developed until 1693, becoming known as Seven Dials . Thomas Neale built much of the area, giving his name to Neal Street and Neal's Yard . St Giles and Seven Dials became known for their astrologers and alchemists, an association which lasts to this day. The village of St Giles stood on
4500-439: The silk trade; Hogarth contrasts their fussiness and high fashion with the slovenliness of the group on the other side of the road; the rotting corpse of a cat that has been stoned to death lying in the gutter that divides the street is the only thing the two sides have in common. The older members of the congregation wear traditional dress, while the younger members wear the fashions of the day. The children are dressed up as adults:
4575-474: The south, and Dyott Street in the east. The Centrepoint homeless charity and Google now have their offices on the site. Originally, it was a plot of land owned by the Bainbridge family who installed roads and leased plots to individual developers in the late 17th century, many of whom put up high density lodging houses. The area had fallen into disrepair by the 18th century, made worse by debts held by
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#17327826287194650-471: The stairwell of the gin cellar below. Half-naked, she has no concern for anything other than a pinch of snuff. This mother was not such an exaggeration as she might appear: in 1734, Judith Dufour reclaimed her two-year-old child from the workhouse where it had been given a new set of clothes; she then strangled it and left the infant's body in a ditch so that she could sell the clothes (for 1s. 4d.) to buy gin. In another case, an elderly woman, Mary Estwick, let
4725-492: The sub-surface ticket hall from the north-east, south-west and north-west corners of St Giles Circus and from a subway beneath the Centrepoint building which starts on Andrew Borde Street. The entrances were frequently congested leading to occasions during peak periods of the day when they were briefly closed to prevent overcrowding in the station. In 2009, Transport for London began a major reconstruction of large parts of
4800-548: The surrounding area. It is generally thought that the Bloomsbury Conservation Area Advisory Committee (BCAAC) has the most detailed knowledge of Bloomsbury's built heritage and social history due to its members having lived in the area for many decades. It is accordingly consulted with on all major and minor development proposals in the area, including traffic circulation changes, and its objections carry formal planning weight through
4875-493: The surrounding streets, killing eight people. All of the geographic area of Bloomsbury is covered by the Bloomsbury Conservation Area, an historic designation designed to limit new development, and ensure that changes to the built environment preserve and enhance its special character. This conservation area is one of the oldest and most significant in the UK, having been designated in 1968, less than
4950-627: The two daughters and co-heiresses of Thomas Wriothesley, 4th Earl of Southampton (1607–1667). Rachel's son and heir was Wriothesley Russell, 2nd Duke of Bedford (1680–1711), of Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire, whose family also owned Covent Garden , south of Bloomsbury, acquired by them at the Dissolution of the Monasteries . The area was laid out mainly in the 18th century, largely by Wriothesley Russell, 3rd Duke of Bedford , who built Bloomsbury Market, which opened in 1730. His younger brother, John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford , would have built
5025-432: The village was built on marshland. The Drury Lane Paving Act 1605 ( 3 Jas. 1 . c. 22) had condemned the area as "deepe foul and dangerous". Vagrants expelled from the city settled in the St Giles district known for the generous charitable relief of the parish. Irish and French refugees were drawn to the area as well as "St Giles blackbirds", black servants reduced to begging. The 1665 Great Plague started in St Giles and
5100-496: The worst living conditions in all of London's history; this was the lowest point which human beings could reach". Reformer Henry Mayhew described the slum in 1860 in A Visit to the Rookery of St Giles and its Neighbourhood : The parish of St. Giles, with its nests of close and narrow alleys and courts inhabited by the lowest class of Irish costermongers , has passed into a byword as the synonym of filth and squalor. And although New Oxford Street has been carried straight through
5175-494: Was an elongated "L" shape, stretching from Torrington Place in the north to Shelton Street in the south and then east to include Lincoln's Inn Fields . For registration , and therefore census reporting, the civil parish was divided in North and South districts, with Monmouth Street broadly forming the division. The length of St Giles High Street is identical to the width of the parish at that point. The parish of St George Bloomsbury
5250-623: Was launched in 2006 when local resident Roma Backhouse was commissioned to mark the re-opening of the Brunswick Centre, a residential and shopping area. The free festival is a celebration of the local area, partnering with galleries, libraries and museums, and achieved charitable status at the end of 2012. As of 2013, the Duchess of Bedford is a festival patron and Festival Directors have included Cathy Maher (2013), Kate Anderson (2015–2019) and Rosemary Richards (2020–present). Bloomsbury
5325-414: Was located to the northeast. In 1881 the population of St Giles North was 13,837 and St Giles South was 14,864. The local government of London was reorganised in 1900 and St Giles became part of the Metropolitan Borough of Holborn . Since 1965 it has been part of the London Borough of Camden . St Giles has no formally defined boundaries – those utilised here form a rough triangle: New Oxford Street to
5400-692: Was split off in 1731, but the parishes were combined for civil purposes in 1774 and used for the administration of the Poor Law after the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 . George Buchanan was appointed Health Officer for the parish around 1856. Upon the creation of the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1855 the combined parishes became the St Giles District and were transferred to the County of London in 1889. The St Giles parish
5475-445: Was the patron saint of lepers and the hospital was home to a leper colony, the site chosen for its surrounding fields and marshes separating contagion from nearby London. Peter Ackroyd argues that the character of vagrancy has never left the area. A village accreted to cater to the brethren and patients. The crossroads which is now St Giles Circus , where Oxford Street, Charing Cross Road, Tottenham Court Road, and New Oxford St meet,
5550-464: Was the site of a gallows until the fifteenth century. The Lollard leader Sir John Oldcastle was hanged, and he and his gallows were burnt, there. Grape Street, in the heart of the St Giles district, runs beside the site of the hospital's vineyard. The monastery was dissolved during the Reformation and a parish church created from the chapel. The hospital continued to care for lepers until
5625-632: Was welcoming, and the shop's best-sellers were hand-coloured rhyme sheets for children. During World War I , when Monro was serving in the armed forces, the shop was run almost single-handed by his assistant, Alida Klementaski, whom he later married. Among the works published by the Poetry Bookshop were collections by Charlotte Mew and Richard Aldington and the Georgian Poetry series as well as Ezra Pound 's seminal 1914 anthology Des Imagistes . Penelope Fitzgerald for quite
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