Connaught Square in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, England, was the first

square In geometry, a square is a regular polygon, regular quadrilateral. It has four straight sides of equal length and four equal angles. Squares are special cases of rectangles, which have four equal angles, and of rhombuses, which have four equal si ...

of city houses to be built in

Bayswater Bayswater is an area in the City of Westminster in West London. It is a built-up district with a population density of 17,500 per square kilometre, and is located between Kensington Gardens to the south, Paddington to the north-east, and ...

. It is named after a royal, the Earl of Connaught who was from 1805 until death in 1834 the second and last Duke of Gloucester ''and'' Edinburgh, and who maintained his fringe-of-London house and grounds on the land of this square and Gloucester Square. Its appearance is essentially the same as in the 1820s. Its south-east is 115 metres north of Hyde Park and the same west of

Edgware Road Edgware Road is a major road in London, England. The route originated as part of Roman Watling Street and, unusually in London, it runs for in an almost perfectly straight line. Forming part of the modern A5 road, Edgware Road undergoes sever ...

. This point is WNW of

Marble Arch The Marble Arch is a 19th-century white marble-faced triumphal arch in London, England. The structure was designed by John Nash in 1827 as the state entrance to the cour d'honneur of Buckingham Palace; it stood near the site of what is today th ...

, which sits on a very large green roundabout (including sculptures and public fountains) marking the western end of

Oxford Street Oxford Street is a major road in the City of Westminster in the West End of London, running between Marble Arch and Tottenham Court Road via Oxford Circus. It marks the notional boundary between the areas of Fitzrovia and Marylebone to t ...

. Connaught Street runs along is northern end.

Architecture

Connaught Square's architecture is primarily Georgian. Redevelopment was initially planned in the early 18th century and the first of its 45 brick houses was built in 1828 as part of the Hyde Park Estate by Thomas Allason. Having built the Square, Thomas Allason (1790-1852) and family remained living at no 1 Connaught until well past he death in 1852.

Community

Residents of Connaught Square hold an exclusive summer party in the central communal garden every year. The

garden square A garden square is a type of communal garden in an urban area wholly or substantially surrounded by buildings; commonly, it continues to be applied to public and private parks formed after such a garden becomes accessible to the public at large. ...

is maintained by the owners of the adjoining properties who contribute to its upkeep, and in return are issued keys to the garden. Such gated gardens are a particular feature of this area of London. The horses of the

Royal Artillery The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery (RA) and colloquially known as "The Gunners", is one of two regiments that make up the artillery arm of the British Army. The Royal Regiment of Artillery comprises t ...

regularly do their early morning rides down Connaught Street.

Notable residents

In October 2004, serving

Prime Minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He was Leader ...

and his wife

Cherie Cherie is an English female given name. It comes from the French ''chérie'', meaning ''darling'' (from the past participle of the verb ''chérir'', ''to cherish''). It has also been used as a diminutive of names starting with or containing the s ...

bought as their home a house on this square for £3.5 million; as at 2007 the policing of which was an all-hours rota giving at least four on-duty Metropolitan Police Service

Diplomatic Protection Group Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection (PaDP) is a branch of the Protection Command within the Specialist Operations directorate of London's Metropolitan Police Service. Duties A unit of the Metropolitan Police Service, PaDP is responsible for ...

officers.Claudia Winkleman: Take It From Me - Blair's moving in
''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'' (London). Published 16 May 2007. Retrieved 30 May 2009. Other famous residents have included: * №5 - Nigel Balchin - author * №14 -

Marie Taglioni Marie Taglioni, Comtesse de Voisins (23 April 1804 – 22 April 1884) was a Swedish-born ballet dancer of the Romantic ballet era partially of Italian descent, a central figure in the history of European dance. She spent most of her life in t ...

- ballerina (resident from 1875 until 1876) * №15 -

Fanny Kemble Frances Anne Kemble (later Butler; 27 November 180915 January 1893) was a British actress from a Kemble family, theatre family in the early and mid-nineteenth century. She was a well-known and popular writer and abolitionist whose published wor ...

- actress, author, playwright and poet (resident from 1877 to 1879)

Other buildings

Aside from predominant residential use, the buildings host a very small primary school and doctor’s surgery. A garage specialises in classic cars on northern approach way Connaught Street. To the west are the shops of Connaught Village and a long-standing Chinese restaurant, which was among the many meeting places of high-level corrupt talks regarding

Bruce Grobbelaar Bruce David Grobbelaar (born 6 October 1957) is a Zimbabwean former professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper, most prominently for English club Liverpool between 1981 and 1994, and for the Zimbabwean national team. Regarded as one of ...

, footballer.

In film, fiction and the media

In fiction, Lionel Holland lives at №242 in the film ''

Kind Hearts and Coronets ''Kind Hearts and Coronets'' is a 1949 British crime film, crime black comedy film directed by Robert Hamer. It features Dennis Price, Joan Greenwood, Valerie Hobson and Alec Guinness; Guinness plays eight characters. The plot is loosely based ...

''.

Proximity to the Tyburn Tree

The single-most frequented gallows, the Tyburn Tree, for public judicial execution in London, was nearby. Most sufficient-scale 18th century maps mark out an area by the edge of the top a very broad rise which is a block or so north along

as having, in rough drawing to symbolise obsolescence, such a landmark tree. Relatedly, Oswald's Stone or

Ossulstone Ossulstone is an obsolete subdivision (hundred) covering 26.4% of – and the most metropolitan part – of the historic county of Middlesex, England.British History Online �Hundreds of Middlesex/ref> It surrounded but did not includ ...

stood for centuries on the corner of Edgware Road and Oxford Street/Road (formerly also called Uxbridge Road), and was an equally prominent landmark of

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, former county in South East England, now mainly within Greater London. Its boundaries largely followed three rivers: the River Thames, Thames in the south, the River Lea, Le ...

and of the most populous hundred (see

Hundred Court A hundred is an administrative division that is geographically part of a larger region. It was formerly used in England, Wales, some parts of the United States, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, and in Cumberland County in the British Colony of ...

), providing a cultural focus and marking out the place of early meetings of the justices of the peace and lords of the many Ossulstone manors more generally.

Peter Ackroyd Peter Ackroyd (born 5 October 1949) is an English biographer, novelist and critic with a specialist interest in the history and culture of London. For his novels about English history and culture and his biographies of, among others, William ...

recites a list of anecdotes and archaeological finds supportive of pre-18th century mass burials where much of Connaught Place stands. No greater evidence is given for second theory above.''London: The Biography''; Peter Ackroyd (Vintage 2001) {{ISBN, 0-09-942258-1

Nearby places

Knightsbridge Knightsbridge is a residential and retail district in central London, south of Hyde Park, London, Hyde Park. It is identified in the London Plan as one of two international retail centres in London, alongside the West End of London, West End. ...

Notting Hill Notting Hill is a district of West London, England, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Notting Hill is known for being a wikt:cosmopolitan, cosmopolitan and multiculturalism, multicultural neighbourhood, hosting the annual Notting ...

Paddington Paddington is an area in the City of Westminster, in central London, England. A medieval parish then a metropolitan borough of the County of London, it was integrated with Westminster and Greater London in 1965. Paddington station, designed b ...

St John's Wood St John's Wood is a district in the London Borough of Camden, London Boroughs of Camden and the City of Westminster, London, England, about 2.5 miles (4 km) northwest of Charing Cross. Historically the northern part of the Civil Parish#An ...

Westminster Westminster is the main settlement of the City of Westminster in Central London, Central London, England. It extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street and has many famous landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Buckingham Palace, ...

Nearest tube stations

* Edgware Road (Bakerloo Line) * Edgware Road (Circle, District and Hammersmith & City Lines)

References

External links

Page at LondonTown.com

Connaught Square is a part of The Hyde Park Estate
Squares in the City of Westminster Garden squares in London Communal gardens Tyburnia