Vincent Square is a grass-covered

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 ...

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, ...

, London, England. It is London's largest privately-owned square, covering 13 acres, lined with mature trees including

London Plane The London plane, or sometimes hybrid plane, ''Platanus'' × ''hispanica'', is a tree in the genus ''Platanus''. It is often known by the Synonym (taxonomy), synonym ''Platanus'' × ''acerifolia'', a later name. It is a Hybrid (biology ...

s. In among a network of backstreets, it chiefly provides playing fields for

Westminster School Westminster School is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school in Westminster, London, England, in the precincts of Westminster Abbey. It descends from a charity school founded by Westminster Benedictines before the Norman Conquest, as do ...

, who own it absolutely; otherwise, it functions as a green lung and a view for the homes, hotel and other organisations adjoining. Nine of its adjoining buildings have been given strict statutory architectural recognition and protection. The Liberal Democrat Headquarters, housing one of Parliament's three largest political parties, is based at 1 Vincent Square.

History and use

It was appropriated in the 18th century on land originally known as Tothill Fields, by William Vincent, a former

Dean of Westminster The Dean of Westminster is the head of the chapter at Westminster Abbey. Due to the abbey's status as a royal peculiar, the dean answers directly to the British monarch (not to the Bishop of London as ordinary, nor to the Archbishop of Canterb ...

and headmaster of Westminster School who simply paid a man with a horse and plough to enclose the square with a mound and ditch. Previous uses include a death camp and cemetery for 1,200 Scottish prisoners starved to death after the

Battle of Worcester The Battle of Worcester took place on 3 September 1651 in and around the city of Worcester, England and was the last major battle of the 1642 to 1651 Wars of the Three Kingdoms. A Parliamentarian army of around 28,000 under Oliver Cromwell def ...

in 1651, a large burial pit for victims of the

Great Plague of London The Great Plague of London, lasting from 1665 to 1666, was the most recent major epidemic of the bubonic plague to occur in England. It happened within the centuries-long Second plague pandemic, Second Pandemic, a period of intermittent buboni ...

in 1665/6, a jail named Tothill Fields Bridewell, and a well-known bear-baiting den recorded in the reign of Queen Anne. The space, facing buildings and certain others surrounding form the Vincent Square

Conservation Area Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural or cultural values. Protected areas are those areas in which human presence or the exploitation of natural resources (e.g. firewoo ...

. The square contains a cricket pavilion, four football pitches, about 10 tennis courts, and the groundsman's house, and is used on school weekdays by

Westminster Under School Westminster Under School is an independent preparatory school for boys aged 7 to 13, attached to Westminster School in London. The school was founded in 1943 in the precincts of Westminster School in Little Dean's Yard, just behind Westminste ...

. Other buildings fronting the square include the headquarters of the

Royal Horticultural Society The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), founded in 1804 as the Horticultural Society of London, is the UK's leading gardening charity. The RHS promotes horticulture through its five gardens at Wisley (Surrey), Hyde Hall (Essex), Harlow Carr ...

. Outside of school bookings the courts host many fixtures of the Lords and Commons Tennis Club.

Notable buildings

Numbering is from the east corner, clockwise (3 to 87) and applies to fewer than 87 buildings, from great mergers and additional road openings. Those listed in the initial, mainstream category of statutory recognition and protection ("

Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

") are: *№s 3 and 4. *№s 7 and 8. *Royal Horticultural Society Old Hall (designed in 1904 by Edwin James Stubbs) *№s 84 and 85. (terraced buildings of circa (about) 1800) *№s 86 (a corner house of about 1800) At rarer Grade II* level is: *the former Westminster College In 1981,

opened in the building of the former Grosvenor Hospital for Women which had closed in 1976.

Indirect use

Vincent Square lends its name to a current

electoral ward A ward is a local authority area, typically used for electoral purposes. In some countries, wards are usually named after neighbourhoods, thoroughfares, parishes, landmarks, geographical features and in some cases historical figures connected t ...

of the local authority,

Westminster City Council Westminster City Council is the local authority for the City of Westminster in Greater London, England. It is a London borough council, one of 32 in London. The council has been under Labour majority control since 2022. Full council meetings ...

. Its bounds are thus drawn up for approximately equal representation of the electorate. At the 2011 Census its population was 9,988.

Notable residents

* Liberal Democrats *

Richard Crossman Richard Howard Stafford Crossman (15 December 1907 – 5 April 1974) was a British Labour Party politician. A university classics lecturer by profession, he was elected a Member of Parliament in 1945 and became a significant figure among the ...

* Charles Hamilton Fasson * Robert Jenrick *

Duncan Sandys Duncan Edwin Duncan-Sandys, Baron Duncan-Sandys (; 24 January 1908 – 26 November 1987), was a British politician and minister in successive Conservative governments in the 1950s and 1960s. He was a son-in-law of Winston Churchill and played a ...

* Robert Vansittart, 1st Baron Vansittart *

James Watson James Dewey Watson (born April 6, 1928) is an American molecular biology, molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist. In 1953, he co-authored with Francis Crick the academic paper in ''Nature (journal), Nature'' proposing the Nucleic acid ...

Harold Wilson James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx (11 March 1916 – 23 May 1995) was a British statesman and Labour Party (UK), Labour Party politician who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, from 1964 to 1970 and again from 197 ...

References

External links

LondonTown.com information

Cricket Pavilion, Vincent Square
photograph on

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