Holborn Circus is a five-way junction at the western extreme 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 ...

, specifically between

Holborn Holborn ( or ), an area in central London, covers the south-eastern part of the London Borough of Camden and a part (St Andrew Holborn (parish), St Andrew Holborn Below the Bars) of the Wards of the City of London, Ward of Farringdon Without i ...

(St Andrew) and its

Hatton Garden Hatton Garden is a street and commercial zone in the Holborn district of the London Borough of Camden, abutting the narrow precinct of Saffron Hill which then abuts the City of London. It takes its name from Sir Christopher Hatton, a favourit ...

(St Alban) part. Its main, east–west, route is the inchoate

A40 road The A40 is a trunk road which runs between London and Goodwick (Fishguard), Wales, and officially called The London to Fishguard Trunk Road (A40) in all legal documents and Acts. Much of its length within England has been superseded by motorw ...

. It was designed by the engineer William Haywood and opened in 1867. The term ''circus'' describes how the frontages of the buildings facing curved round in a concave chamfer. These, in part replaced with glass and metal-clad buildings, remain well set back. The place was described in

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English novelist, journalist, short story writer and Social criticism, social critic. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by ...

' ''Dictionary of London'' (1879) as "perhaps... the finest piece of street architecture in the City".

Roads

High Holborn High Holborn ( ) is a street in Holborn and Farringdon Without, Central London, which forms a part of the A40 route from London to Fishguard. It starts in the west at the eastern end of St Giles High Street and runs past the Kingsway and ...

(part of the

) links Holborn Circus to the West End. To the east,

Holborn Viaduct Holborn Viaduct is a road bridge in London and the name of the street which crosses it (which forms part of the A40 road, A40 route). It links Holborn, via Holborn Circus, with Newgate Street, in the City of London, England financial distri ...

leads into the

financial district. To the north Charterhouse Street and London's jewellery trade district of

is in the

London Borough of Camden The London Borough of Camden () is a London boroughs, borough in Inner London, England. Camden Town Hall, on Euston Road, lies north of Charing Cross. The borough was established on 1 April 1965 from the former Metropolitan boroughs of the Cou ...

. The district of

Clerkenwell Clerkenwell ( ) is an area of central London, England. Clerkenwell was an Civil Parish#Ancient parishes, ancient parish from the medieval period onwards, and now forms the south-western part of the London Borough of Islington. The St James's C ...

is to the north-east. New Fetter Lane (the start of the A4 road) exits to the south, a few metres along which a brief lane, without motor vehicle access at its south end, leads towards Blackfriars, which changes name twice along its course.

Layout changes

Holborn Circus was a frequent

accident blackspot In road safety management, an accident blackspot or black spot is a place where road traffic collisions have historically been concentrated. There may have been several reasons for this, such as * a sharp drop or corner in a straight road, conc ...

, topping a list of the worst such sites in 2012. This was partly due to it being a multi-arm junction, that was a signalised roundabout, and had poor visibility due to the central statue. The Clear Zone Partnership between the

and the

identified the need to simplify and improve this junction in road safety terms. The

identified the opportunity to redirect St Andrew's Street into New Fetter Lane. To create a new paved space beside the church and to reduce the number of arms of the junction. Despite this traffic modelling still could not make the traffic flow adequately work for this new junction design. The

then saw that by relocating the statue to beside the junction it could be seen and appreciated up close by people, and this would allow a smaller, and potentially safer junction, which became the successful design. In May 2012 funding was secured for a £4.4 million improvement project to the junction to reduce its high accident rate. Works included the relocation of the statue from the centre of the junction where it obstructed drivers' sight lines to a nearby position on High Holborn. The number of roads feeding into the junction was also reduced from six to five, with St Andrew Street now accessed from New Fetter Lane.

Surrounding buildings

On one side lies the church of

St Andrew, Holborn The Church of St Andrew, Holborn, is a Church of England church on the northwestern edge of the City of London, on Holborn within the Ward of Farringdon Without. History Roman and medieval Roman pottery was found on the site during 2001/02 exc ...

, an ancient guild church that survived the

Great Fire of London The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through central London from Sunday 2 September to Wednesday 5 September 1666, gutting the medieval City of London inside the old London Wall, Roman city wall, while also extendi ...

. However, the parochial authority decided to commission

Christopher Wren Sir Christopher Wren FRS (; – ) was an English architect, astronomer, mathematician and physicist who was one of the most highly acclaimed architects in the history of England. Known for his work in the English Baroque style, he was ac ...

to rebuild it. Although the nave was destroyed in

the Blitz The Blitz (English: "flash") was a Nazi Germany, German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom, for eight months, from 7 September 1940 to 11 May 1941, during the Second World War. Towards the end of the Battle of Britain in 1940, a co ...

, the reconstruction was faithful to Wren's original. Many other buildings surrounding Holborn Circus were severely damaged during the Blitz. After the Second World War, many were demolished. From 1961 to 1994 the

modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

headquarters of the ''

Daily Mirror The ''Daily Mirror'' is a British national daily Tabloid journalism, tabloid newspaper. Founded in 1903, it is part of Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), which is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the tit ...

'', designed by Sir Owen Williams and Anderson, Forster and Wilcox, were a prominent landmark overlooking the junction. The site is now occupied by the headquarters of the supermarket

Sainsbury's J Sainsbury plc, trading as Sainsbury's, is a British supermarket and the second-largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1869 by John James Sainsbury with a shop in Drury Lane, London, the company was the largest UK r ...

Prince Albert statue

To the west of Holborn Circus there is an equestrian statue of

Prince Albert Prince Albert most commonly refers to: *Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1819–1861), consort of Queen Victoria *Albert II, Prince of Monaco (born 1958), present head of state of Monaco Prince Albert may also refer to: Royalty * Alb ...

by Charles Bacon (1874) which is the City of London's official monument to him. This bronze statue was originally sited in the middle of the circus and was moved in 2014 as part of improvement works to the junction. The statue features the prince consort in a field marshal's uniform raising his hat. The sculpture sits on an oblong plinth displaying plaques of

Britannia The image of Britannia () is the national personification of United Kingdom, Britain as a helmeted female warrior holding a trident and shield. An image first used by the Romans in classical antiquity, the Latin was the name variously appli ...

, Albert and bronze figures representing commerce and peace. It was presented by Charles Oppenheim, of the diamond trading company

De Beers The De Beers Group is a South African–British corporation that specializes in the diamond industry, including mining, exploitation, retail, inscription, grading, trading and industrial diamond manufacturing. The company is active in open-pi ...

, whose headquarters is on nearby

Charterhouse Street Charterhouse Street is a street on the north side of Smithfield in the City of London. The road forms part of the City’s boundary with the neighbouring London Boroughs of Islington and Camden. It connects Charterhouse Square and Holborn C ...

References

*Google Maps

External links