Bloomsbury, London

Bloomsbury is the area in the London Borough of Camden in central London. Southampton Square, now called Bloomsbury Square, was the first place in London to be named a "Square". It is a formal square laid out in 1660 by Thomas Wriothesley. Bloomsbury is home to the British Museum, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, the British Medical Association and the University of London library and administrative building. Great Ormond Street Hospital and University College Hospital are also located here. The British Library used to be located here before it moved in 1997 to larger premises at a location next to St Pancras railway station in Somers Town nearby.

According to the record of 1086, the area that is today Bloomsbury used to be vineyards and "wood for 100 pigs". The name Bloomsbury was first recorded in 1201, when William de Blemond, a Norman landowner, bought the land. It came from "Blemondisberi" meaning "the bury, or manor, of Blemond". At the end of the 14th century, Edward III bought Blemond Manor, and gave it to Carthusian monks who kept the area mostly rural. In the 16th century, with the dissolution of monasteries, King Henry VIII took the land back, and granted it to Thomas Wriothesley. As mentioned earlier, Wriothesley built Southhampton Square. Landowners including Wriothesley Russel, built Bloomsbury Market in 1730.

There is no official boundary for Bloomsbury. It can be roughly defined as the square bounded by Tottenham Court Road to the west, Euston Road to the north, Gray's Inn Road to the east, and either High Holborn or the main roads formed by New Oxford Street, Bloomsbury Way and Theobald's Road to the south. The Southampton Row - Woburn Place thoroughfare bisects it north-south. The eastern side of this busy road is mostly residential. The Brunswick shopping centre and cinema are here as well as Coram's Fields recreation area. The area north of Coram's Field is generally regarded as part of St. Pancras or King's Cross. The area south is less residential, and contain several hospital including Great Ormond Street. It becomes more commercial as it approaches the boundary with Holborn.

On the west side of Southampton Row - Woburn Place are mostly academic establishments like the University of London, museums including the British Museum, teaching hospitals and formal squares. Gower Street is the most prominent road here. It is one way, and runs from Euston Square to Shaftesbury Avenue in Covent Garden, becoming Bloomsbury Street when it passes to the west of the British Museum.

Bloomsbury is associated with the arts, education and medicine. It gives the name to the Bloomsbury Group of artists, the most famous being Virginia Woolf. Publisher Faber & Feber is at Queen Square. When TS Eliot was an editor, their offices were in Tavistock Square.

Getting there

You can reach Bloomsbury by taking the London Underground to Russell Square, Tottenham Court Rd

List of Places in London

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