Russell Square is a large square in the Bloomsbury area of London, just to the north of Holborn and Covent Garden. Its a busy place with many hotels on the square and surrounding streets, a university and one of London’s biggest tourist attractions, the British Museum, nearby and businesses with offices there.
If you’re going there by tube be aware there are no escalators at Russell Square station, like Covent Garden it has lifts or stairs and believe me the stairs at Russell Square give you a good little aeroboic workout going up.
In July 2005, 26 people were killed after a bomb planted by Islamic extremists exploded on a Piccadilly Line train in a tunnel between Kings Cross and Russell Square stations, one of three bombs set off on the Underground that day, and a fourth bomb killed 13 passengers on a bus in Tavistock Square one block north of Russell Square the same morning.
Russell Square takes its name from the family name of the Dukes of Bedford who owned the land(and still do) and laid out streets in the gardens of the former family home in the 17th century. If you wander around Bloomsbury you’ll see a lot of street names reflecting their influence, Russell Sq, Russell St, Bedford Sq, Avenue, Place and Way among them.
If you come out of the station and turn left you’ll soon be at the north corner of Russell Square which is dominated by the huge eight storey, terrcotta coloured Russell Hotel which was built in 1898. Three sides of the Square and a lot of the streets running off from it are made up of large terraced town houses that used to be owned by the well off middle classes, a lot of these properties are now hotels and its a good area to be based in for a visit to London because its close to Covent Garden, Soho and the West End and just south of two mainline stations in Euston and Kings Cross.
In the middle of Russell Square is a good size park that has large areas of grass and a lot of trees that should provide good shade in summer. It’s criss-crossed by paths and has a fountain in the middle that fires jets of water from the ground, somewhere to get a good soaking if you were really hot. By the Russell Hotel park entrance there’s also a long single storey cafe with a lot of outside tables and chairs that’s open all year. On the south side of the park behind some railings is a statue of Francis, one of the former Duke’s of Bedford.
The park is managed by Camden Council and is open everyday from 7.30am-10pm.
Russell Square also has one of London’s remaining Cabman’s Shelters. These were built in the 19th century to provide some facilities for Hansom Cab drivers who by law weren’t allowed to leave the cab stand where they were parked. They were set up by the Earl of Shaftsbury and were green huts that weren’t allowed to be longer than a horse and cart.
They had an attendant working there who would cook and sell food to the cab drivers and around ten drivers could fit inside at any one time. Drinking , gambling and swearing were banned inside.
61 were bulit and 13 are still in operation today, all of which are Grade II listed buildings.
If you see a lot of student types around that’s because on western side of Russell Square is part of the University of London. The University is widely spread over that part of London, it has an enormous 125,000 student population, and many of its schools occupy buildings around the Square, the imposing grey Senate House building rises up behind.
One of the main reasons visitors will come through Russell Square is to get to the British Museum, the front entrance of which is on Russell Street. If you walk down Montague Place, past the back of the museum, you’ll come out at Bedford Square built in the 1770’s and with some of the best preserved Georgian terraced houses in London. I used to work in one of these buildings in the 1980’s and if you were filming a period film, set in Victorian London this is an ideal location.
These houses have large rooms with high ceilings, they go back quite away and the basements are quite extensive as well.
Bedford Square has a park in the middle that is only for the use of residents or owners of buildings in the square.
The Russell Square part of London is one of those places that seem to have blue plaques on every other property detailing well known or important people who’ve lived there.
The nearest tube stations are Russell Square, Tottenham Court Road and Holborn.
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