Estates in Bloomsbury

1 Duke of Bedford
2 City of London Corporation
3 Capper Mortimer
4 Fitzroy (Duke of Grafton)
5 Somers
6 Skinners' (Tonbridge)
7 Battle Bridge
8 Lucas
9 Harrison
10 Foundling Hospital
11 Rugby
12 Bedford Charity (Harpur)
13 Doughty
14 Gray's Inn
15 Bainbridge–Dyott (Rookeries)

Area between the Foundling and Harrison estates: Church land

Grey areas: fragmented ownership and haphazard development; already built up by 1800

Area of fragmented ownership

The area extending north from High Holborn east of the Bedford estate boundary at Southampton Row and King Street, being nearer to the city of London, was developed much earlier than the fields to its north

The major landowners in the east of this area were Gray’s Inn, and the Bedford Charity, Doughty, and Rugby estates, all of which also began developing their land in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century

Nicholas Barbon, who was the first major speculative builder in the area, laid out Red Lion Square itself as well as many of the streets further north and east; it is not clear who owned the land of Red Lion Fields on which the Square was built

To its north, Queen Square and surrounding land was part of an estate owned by the Curzons of Kedleston, Derbyshire, also developed in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, but sold off by about 1779 to pay off debts

Queen Square and Red Lion Square in particular, as well as the smaller streets in the area around them, thus became attractive locations in the nineteenth century to institutions which would have found it more difficult to establish themselves on the surrounding estates with their restrictions on non-residential and commercial tenants

Along the borders of Bloomsbury, the increasing importance of Euston Road, Gray’s Inn Road, High Holborn, and Tottenham Court Road as through traffic routes meant that they became more unified and coherent as streets, despite the multiplicity of estates whose land they had originally incorporated; as their residential significance to those estates waned, so they too became easier targets for institutions

Streets in area of fragmented ownership

Bedford Head Yard
Blue Boar Yard
Cross Street
Dane Street
Dean Street
Devonshire Street
Drake Street
Eagle Court
Eagle Street
Euston Road
Featherstone Buildings
Fisher Court
Fisher Street
French Horn Yard
Gloucester Street
Gray’s Inn Lane Terrace
Gray’s Inn Road
Greyhound Yard
Hand Court
High Holborn
High Street
Hills Yard
King’s Road
Kingsgate Street
Lamb’s Conduit Passage
Little Ormond Street
Middle Row Holborn
Old North Street
Orange Street
Plumer’s Court
Powis Place
Procter Street
Queen Anne’s Walk
Queen Square
Queen Square Place
Red Lion Passage
Red Lion Square
Red Lion Yard (1)
Rose Alley
Theobald’s Road
Three Cups Inn Yard
Three Cups Yard
Tottenham Court Road
White Horse Yard
Yorkshire Grey Yard

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