Finsbury Square
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Finsbury Square is a square in
Finsbury Finsbury is a district of Central London, forming the southeastern part of the London Borough of Islington. It borders the City of London. The Manorialism, Manor of Finsbury is first recorded as ''Vinisbir'' (1231) and means "manor of a man c ...
in
central London Central London is the innermost part of London, in England, spanning the City of London and several boroughs. Over time, a number of definitions have been used to define the scope of Central London for statistics, urban planning and local gove ...
which includes a six-rink grass
bowling green A bowling green is a finely laid, close-mown and rolled stretch of turf for playing the game of bowls. Before 1830, when Edwin Beard Budding of Thrupp, near Stroud, UK, invented the lawnmower, lawns were often kept cropped by grazing sheep ...
. It was developed in 1777 on the site of a previous area of green space to the north of the
City of London The City of London, also known as ''the City'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county and Districts of England, local government district with City status in the United Kingdom, city status in England. It is the Old town, his ...
known as Finsbury Fields, in the parish of St Luke's and near
Moorfields Moorfields was an open space, partly in the City of London, lying adjacent to – and outside – its London Wall, northern wall, near the eponymous Moorgate. It was known for its marshy conditions, the result of the defensive wall acting a ...
. It is sited on the east side of
City Road City Road or The City Road is a road that runs through central London. The northwestern extremity of the road is at Angel where it forms a continuation of Pentonville Road. Pentonville Road itself is the modern name for the eastern part of Lo ...
, opposite the east side of
Bunhill Fields Bunhill Fields is a former burial ground in central London, in the London Borough of Islington, just north of the City of London. What remains is about in extent and the bulk of the site is a public garden maintained by the City of London Cor ...
. It is approximately 200m north of
Moorgate station Moorgate () is a London station group, central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station on Moorgate in the City of London. Main line railway services for Hertford North railway station, Hertford, Welwyn Garden City rai ...
, 300m north-west of
Liverpool Street station Liverpool Street station, also known as London Liverpool Street, is a major central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station in the north-eastern corner of the City of London, in the ward of Bishopsgate Without. It i ...
and 400m south of
Old Street station Old Street is an interchange station at the junction of Old Street and City Road in Central London for London Underground and National Rail services. The London Underground station is on the Bank and Monument stations, Bank branch of the Nort ...
. Nearby locations are
Finsbury Circus Finsbury Circus is a park in the Coleman Street Ward of the City of London, England. The 2 acre park is the largest public open space within the City's boundaries. It is not to be confused with Finsbury Square, just north of the City, or Fins ...
and Finsbury Pavement. Named after it, but several miles away, are
Finsbury Park Finsbury Park is a public park in Harringay, north London, England. The park lies on the southern-most edge of the London Borough of Haringey. It is in the area formerly covered by the historic parish of Hornsey, succeeded by the Municipal ...
and its eponymous neighbourhood. The centre of the square includes an underground NCP Car Park and two disused petrol stations, also owned by NCP for above-ground commercial parking. Finsbury Square is served by
bus route A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a motor vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van, but fewer than the average rail transport. It is most commonly used i ...
s 21, 43, 141 and 214.


History

In 1777 Finsbury Square was laid out as a planned quadrangle of terraced town houses surrounding a central garden. Beginning in the late 19th century, the houses began to be demolished to make way for large-scale commercial properties. Past residents of the square include Pascoe Grenfell Hill,
Thomas Southwood Smith Thomas Southwood Smith (17881861) was an English physician and sanitary reformer. Early life Smith was born at Martock, Somerset, into a strict Baptist family, his parents being William Smith and Caroline Southwood. In 1802 he won a scholarshi ...
and Philip Henry Pye-Smith. It has also been the site of the ''Temple of the Muses'', the
bookshop Bookselling is the commercial trading of books, which is the retail and distribution end of the publishing process. People who engage in bookselling are called booksellers, bookdealers, book people, bookmen, or bookwomen. History The foundi ...
of James Lackington and the first home of the
rabbi A rabbi (; ) is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi—known as ''semikha''—following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of t ...
nical
seminary A seminary, school of theology, theological college, or divinity school is an educational institution for educating students (sometimes called seminarians) in scripture and theology, generally to prepare them for ordination to serve as cle ...
that became the
London School of Jewish Studies The London School of Jewish Studies (commonly known as LSJS, originally founded as Jews' College) is a London-based organisation providing adult educational courses and teacher training to the wider Jewish community. Many leading figures in Brit ...
(1855–81), of the
Greek Orthodox Greek Orthodox Church (, , ) is a term that can refer to any one of three classes of Christian Churches, each associated in some way with Greek Christianity, Levantine Arabic-speaking Christians or more broadly the rite used in the Eastern Rom ...
Church of Saint Sophia and of the Roman Catholic Church of St Mary Moorfields (1820–1900). From 1907 to 1914, 39 Finsbury Square was the home of the City of London Yeomanry. The site is now occupied by City Gate House which was designed by Frederick Gould and
Giles Gilbert Scott Sir Giles Gilbert Scott (9 November 1880 – 8 February 1960) was a British architect known for his work on the New Bodleian Library, Cambridge University Library, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, Battersea Power Station, Liverpool Cathedral, and de ...
and completed in 1930. In 1784,
Vincenzo Lunardi Vincenzo Lunardi (11 January 1754 – 1 August 1806) was a pioneering Italian aeronaut, born in Lucca. Ascents in England Vincenzo Lunardi's family were of minor Tuscan nobility from Lucca, and his father had married late in life. Vincenzo was o ...
achieved the first successful hot air balloon flight in England from the adjacent Artillery Ground. The south side of the square was known as Sodomites Walk in the 18th century and was notorious as a gay cruising area. On 22 October 2011,
Occupy London Occupy London was a political movement in London, England, and part of the international Occupy movement. While some media described it as an "anti-capitalist" movement, in the statement written and endorsed by consensus by the Occupy assembly i ...
protesters began to camp on the square. They were subsequently removed in an eviction described by the council as 'peaceful and low key'. In January 2013, the
University of Liverpool The University of Liverpool (abbreviated UOL) is a Public university, public research university in Liverpool, England. Founded in 1881 as University College Liverpool, Victoria University (United Kingdom), Victoria University, it received Ro ...
announced that its London Campus would be at 33 Finsbury Square.Liverpool University in London
Prospectus 2013
Also in 2013 a memorial was installed at the SW of the square commemorating those who died in the 1975
Moorgate tube crash The Moorgate tube crash occurred on 28 February 1975 at 8:46 am on the London Underground's Northern City Line; 43 people died and 74 were injured after a train failed to stop at the line's southern terminus, Moorgate station, and crashed ...
.


Today

On the west side of the square, 10 Finsbury Square is a 150,000 sq ft office building built in 2014. It is occupied by the
London Metal Exchange The London Metal Exchange (LME) is a futures and forwards exchange in London, United Kingdom with the world's largest market in standardised forward contracts, futures contracts and options on base metals. The exchange also offers contracts on ...
. The north side of the square is largely occupied by Triton Court at 14–18 Finsbury Square, a steel-frame constructed office building originally built during the first three decades of the twentieth century, along with Royal London House (22–25 Finsbury Square) which dates from the 1950s. The east of the square is occupied by
Grant Thornton Grant Thornton is a multinational professional services network based in London, United Kingdom. It is the seventh-largest in the world by revenue and the sixth-largest by number of employees. The network consists of independent accounting an ...
accountants and auditors at 30 Finsbury Square, and the University of Liverpool in London at 33 Finsbury Square. In November 2019, City, University of London announced that it had acquired 33 Finsbury Square on a lease. The university's
Bayes Business School Bayes Business School, formerly known as Cass Business School, is the business school of City St George's, University of London, located in St Luke's, London, St Luke's, just to the north of the City of London. It was established in 1966. Bayes ...
(formerly Cass Business School) will occupy the building, as well as significantly remodelling its Bunhill Row campus. The south of the square is City Gate House, 39–45 Finsbury Square. Finsbury Square is also the venue for an occasional farmers' market.


Royal London House and Triton Court

The buildings on the north side of the square were built over the first half of the twentieth century to serve as headquarters for what is now the
Royal London Group The Royal London Mutual Insurance Society Limited, along with its subsidiaries, is the largest mutual insurer and investment company in the United Kingdom, and in the top 30 mutuals globally, with Group funds under management of £169 billion ...
; collectively they were known as Royal London House. The oldest (westernmost) section (with its
cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, usually dome-like structure on top of a building often crowning a larger roof or dome. Cupolas often serve as a roof lantern to admit light and air or as a lookout. The word derives, via Ital ...
and clock on the corner with City Road) dates from 1904 to 1905 and was built by John Belcher as headquarters for the Royal London Friendly Society; over the next ten years this building was extended eastwards by four bays. The adjacent, taller section, with its prominent tower-cum-spire, dates from 1929 to 1930; it was built by Belcher's former partner, J. J. Joass, to form an expanded headquarters for the Royal London Mutual Assurance Society. (A contemporary extension to the north of the
Edwardian In the United Kingdom, the Edwardian era was a period in the early 20th century that spanned the reign of King Edward VII from 1901 to 1910. It is commonly extended to the start of the First World War in 1914, during the early reign of King Ge ...
block was also built by Joass.) Finally, the whole complex was extended eastwards again in the 1950s with the addition of a block by the architect H. Bramhill. In the 1980s, the older (pre-1940s) buildings were all comprehensively redeveloped, by
Sheppard Robson Sheppard Robson (previously Richard Sheppard, Robson & Partners) is a British architecture firm, founded in 1938 by Richard Sheppard (architect), Sir Richard Herbert Sheppard, with offices in London, Manchester, and Glasgow. It was particularl ...
& Partners, to form a new office complex: Triton Court. The interiors were gutted and rebuilt, but the façades were retained, albeit with the addition of a double-height
mansard roof A mansard or mansard roof (also called French roof or curb roof) is a multi-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterised by two slopes on each of its sides, with the lower slope at a steeper angle than the upper, and often punctured by dormer wi ...
and the insertion of a new entrance arch through the four-bay extension to the original Edwardian block. These are now the only remaining pre-World War II buildings in the square. After the completion of Triton Court, the 1950s block alone was left with the designation Royal London House. In 2013–15, Triton Court was developed by Resolution Property into Alphabeta, a 220,000 sq ft office block. This was sold to Indonesian real estate conglomerate
Sinar Mas Land Sinar Mas Land is an Indonesian real estate development company, which is a subsidiary of Sinar Mas Group. It combines two big developers, Bumi Serpong Damai and Duta Pertiwi. It formed in 1988 under the flag of Duta Pertiwi. It now holds subst ...
in 2015. At around the same time the 1950s block, Royal London House, was converted into The Montcalm Hotel (completed in 2016).


References


External links

* {{coord, 51.52089, N, 0.08649, W, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title, format=dms Squares in the London Borough of Islington