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Tavistock Square
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tavistock Square is a public square in Bloomsbury, London with a fine garden.
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The centre-piece of the gardens is a statue of Mahatma Gandhi, which was installed in 1968.
There is also a memorial to conscientious objectors (unveiled in 1995), busts of Virginia Woolf and Dame Louisa Aldrich-Blake as well as a cherry tree planted in 1967 in memory of the victims of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima.
The square is part of an estate owned by the Dukes of Bedford, and takes its name from the courtesy title given to the eldest sons of the Dukes of Bedford, Marquess of Tavistock. It was developed in the 1820s by the builder Thomas Cubitt.
The following buildings are on Tavistock Square:
- BMA House, the headquarters of the British Medical Association (BMA), the professional association of doctors in the United Kingdom. BMA House was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and is a grade II listed building. [1]
- headquarters of the United World Colleges and Universities UK, the conference of university rectors
- the Tavistock Hotel.
- Connaught Hall, a University of London hall of residence, which houses 215 students, and a grade II listed building.
- School of Public Policy of University College London.
On the BMA building is a blue plaque commemorating that Charles Dickens once lived in a house on the site.
On 7 July 2005 as part of the 7/7 London Bombings, a bomb exploded on a double-decker bus in the north-east corner of the square, outside the BMA building. This resulted in 13 fatalities.
On the occasion of the first anniversary in 2006, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport announced that the square would be the site of the permanent national memorial. A memorial garden is to be laid out in part of the existing garden and the BMA has commissioned a commemorative sundial.
 Statue of Mahatma Gandhi from the East. |
 Gandhi statue from South. |
 Gandhi statue from North. |
 Plaque at the base of the Hiroshima cherry tree amid fallen blossoms. |
 Conscientious Objector memorial, on the North side of the Square. |
 Conscientious Objector memorial inscription |
 Memorial to Louisa Aldrich-Blake |
Other squares on the Bedford Estate in Bloomsbury included: