Berkeley Square

This article is about the town square in London. For other uses, see Berkeley Square (disambiguation).

Berkeley Square in 1830.

Berkeley Square, 2005

Berkeley Square, 2007

Berkeley Square

Berkeley Square /ˈbɑːrkliː/ is a town square in Mayfair in the West End of London, in the City of Westminster. It was originally laid out in the mid 18th century by architect William Kent.

The gardens in the centre are open to the public, and their very large London Plane trees are among the oldest in central London, planted in 1789.

Description

Whilst Berkeley Square was originally a mostly residential area, there now remains only one residential block on the square – number 48. The square is mostly offices, including a number of hedge funds and wealth management businesses.

The square features a sculptural fountain by Alexander Munro, a Pre-Raphaelite sculptor, made in 1865.

The buildings around the square include several by other notable architects including Robert Adam, who designed Lansdowne House (since 1935 home of the Lansdowne Club) in the southwest corner of the square on Fitzmaurice Place. The daring staircase-hall of No. 44 is sometimes considered William Kent's masterpiece. Gunter's Tea Shop, founded under a different name in 1757, is also located here.

50 Berkeley Square is allegedly haunted; it is currently occupied by Maggs Brothers Antiquarian Booksellers.

There are several roads leading off the square including Curzon Street and Hill Street.

History

The square is something of an accident; in 1696, Berkeley House on Piccadilly became Devonshire House when John Berkeley, 3rd Baron Berkeley of Stratton sold it to William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Devonshire. As part of the agreement, Lord Berkeley undertook not to build on that part of the land he retained that lay directly behind the house, so keeping the Duke's view. This agreement was continued when the Berkeley land was developed after 1730, and the gardens of Berkeley Square are the termination of that undeveloped strip; to the south the gardens of Lansdowne House were originally also part of it; they were replaced by the current south side of the square.

Famous residents

Residents of Berkeley Square have included:

• John Byng (1741), Vice-Admiral, Royal Navy. Byng's home was decorated by architect Isaac Ware.
• Horace Walpole lived at no. 11 1779 until his death in 1797.
• George Canning, UK Prime Minister (1827) — at no. 50
• Winston Churchill lived at no. 48 as a child
• Robert Clive of India — bought no. 45 in 1761 and committed suicide there in 1774.
• Sarah Child Villiers, Countess of Jersey (Lady Jersey), one of the famous patronesses of Almack's and leaders of the ton during the Regency era; heiress to the Child & Co. banking fortune — at no. 38.
• Charles Rolls, co-founder of Rolls-Royce, was born in Berkeley Square in 1877.

Famous former owners or residents of Lansdowne House include:

• John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, British Prime Minister (1762–63)
• William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne (later 1st Marquess of Lansdowne), British Prime Minister (1782–83)
• William Pitt the Younger, British Prime Minister (1783–1801, 1804–1806)
• William Waldorf Astor, 1st Viscount Astor, Richest man in America at the time (1891–1893)
• Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery, was a British Liberal statesman and Prime Minister (1894–1895)
• Harry Gordon Selfridge, founder of the Selfridges department store

Fictional residents

• A famous fictional resident of Berkeley Square is P.G. Wodehouse's character Bertie Wooster, who lives in a flat there along with his valet Jeeves, not far from the Drones Club.
• Harry Flashman, the vicious bully of Tom Brown and anti-hero of the Flashman Papers, had a marital home here with his wife Elsperth.
• Cathy Lane, Patty Lane's "identical cousin", is said to have lived here in the theme song to The Patty Duke Show.
• Tomlinson, the title character of Rudyard Kipling's 1891 satirical poem, owns a house on Berkeley Square.
• Peter Standish, a character from the play Berkeley Square written by John Balderston, about a Yankee who lives in a house on the square and is transported back to the 18th century. The play was produced as a movie in 1933, with Leslie Howard, and 1951 and on television in 1959.
• In the 1949 comedy film Kind Hearts and Coronets, Lady Agatha D'Ascogne is made to fall to her death in Berkeley Square to accommodate a clever poetic parody.
• Lady Emily Ashton, created by author Tasha Alexander, lives primarily in her Berkeley Square residence during the Victorian period.
• The Marquis of Alverstoke, the main male character from the book Frederica (novel) written by Georgette Heyer

Transport

Berkeley Square can be easily reached from Green Park tube station on the Piccadilly, Jubilee and Victoria lines, and Bond Street tube station on the Central and Jubilee lines. London Buses route C2 also passes through the square.

Berkeley Square is also one of the most popular locations for the Elektrobay charging points supplied by Elektromotive, with requests for additional charging points to be installed.

See also

• Lansdowne House
• "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" — a 1940 song written by Manning Sherwin and Eric Maschwitz, associated in England with singer Vera Lynn or in America with the Glenn Miller Band, and a 1979 film directed by Ralph Thomas.
• Berkeley Square, the 1933 film starring Leslie Howard
• The Ghosts of Berkeley Square, 1947 film starring Robert Morley and Felix Aylmer
• Berkeley Square, a 1998 TV mini-series produced by, and shown on, the BBC.
• 50 Berkeley Square, a building described as The Most Haunted House in London.
• The Fleming Collection, a large private collection of Scottish art held in the square.
• List of eponymous roads in London

References

Sources

• 'Berkeley Square, North Side', Survey of London: volume 40: The Grosvenor Estate in Mayfair, Part 2 (The Buildings) (1980) at British History Online (date accessed 5 July 2009)
• 'Berkeley Square and its neighbourhood', Old and New London: Volume 4 (1878) at British History Online (date accessed 5 July 2009)
• Sykes, Christopher Simon. Private Palaces: Life in the Great London Houses, Chatto & Windus, 1985

External links

Media related to at Wikimedia Commons

• Berkeley Square at DMOZ
• Berkeley Square @ LondonTown.com