Tavistock Square
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Tavistock Square is a square in Bloomsbury, London. It was developed in the 1820s by the architect Thomas Cubitt. The centre-piece of the gardens is a statue of Mahatma Gandhi, which was installed in 1968. There is also a memorial to conscientious objectors (unveiled in 1995) and a cherry tree planted in 1967 in memory of the victims of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima.
The square is part of an estate owned by the Dukes of Bedford, and takes its name from the courtesy title given to the eldest sons of the Dukes of Bedford, Marquess of Tavistock.
The square is the site of Tavistock Hotel. It is also the site of the headquarters of the British Medical Association (BMA), the professional association of doctors in the United Kingdom, as well as Universities UK, the conference of university rectors. There is a blue plaque on the BMA building commemorating that Charles Dickens once lived in a house on the site.
On 7 July 2005 as part of the coordinated attack on London, a bomb exploded on a double-decker bus in the north-east corner of the square, outside the BMA building, resulting in 13 fatalities.
See also
Other squares on the Bedford Estate in Bloomsbury included:
External links
- Aerial photo showing Gordon Square and Tavistock Square.
- Other map sources.
