Hereford Square

Hereford Square is a garden square in South Kensington, London SW7. It lies to the west of Gloucester Road, which forms the east side of the square. Wetherby Place is the western continuation, running off the north-west corner of the square.

Hereford Square, north side

Hereford Square (centre) on an 1860s Ordnance Survey map not long after it was built and before the area was fully developed.

10-23 and 27-35 Hereford Square have been listed Grade II on the National Heritage List for England since November 1984.[1][2]

The private communal gardens in the centre of Hereford Square are 0.3692 hectares (0.912 acres) in size.[3]

The garden was used as a baseball field during World War II by American soldiers.[3]

History

Hereford Square was built by the architect Thomas Holmes from 1845 to 1850.[4]

Notable buildings and residents

• George Crichton Wells (1914-1999), dermatologist[5]
• George Borrow (1803-1881), lived at no 22
• Frederick William Hulme (1816-1884), landscape painter and illustrator, lived at no 4, according to the 1851 census[6]
• John Arrowsmith, cartographer, lived at No. 35 from 1861 to 1873[7]
• Robert Nandor Berki, political scientist, lived at No. 7 in the late 1950s[8]
• William Henry Brookfield, clergyman, died at No. 16 in 1874[9]
• H. O. Arnold-Forster, writer and politician, died at No. 27 in 1909[10]

The artist Walter Sickert and his wife Ellen stayed at No. 10 Hereford Square in the autumn of 1890 with Ellen's sister, Jane Cobden.[11] The model and writer Tara Moss recalled living in a "freezing granny flat" of a mansion in Hereford Square while she worked as a babysitter during the early days of her modelling career in her 2014 memoir The Fictional Woman.[12]

The writer and social activist Frances Power Cobbe lived with her partner, the sculptor Mary Lloyd, at No. 26 from 1862 to 1884.[13]

Fictional references

The central protagonist in Iris Murdoch's A Severed Head lives in Hereford Square.

References

1. Historic England, "10-23, Hereford Square (1191180)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 17 January 2020
2. Historic England, "27-35, Hereford Square (1358180)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 17 January 2020
3. "London Gardens Online - Hereford Square". London Parks & Gardens Trust. Retrieved 18 January 2020.
4. "Hereford Square SW7". www.opensquares.org. Retrieved 11 December 2017.
5. "Munks Roll Details for George Crichton Wells". munksroll.rcplondon.ac.uk. Retrieved 11 December 2017.
6. "Hereford Square area: The Day estate - British History Online". www.british-history.ac.uk. Retrieved 11 December 2017.
7. Baigent, Elizabeth. "Arrowsmith, John (1790–1873)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved 17 January 2020.
8. Parekh, Bhikhu. "Berki, Robert Nandor (1936–1991)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved 17 January 2020.
9. Matthew, H.C.G. "Brookfield, William Henry (1809–1874)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved 17 January 2020.
10. Shannon, R.T. "Forster, Hugh Oakeley Arnold- (1855–1909)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved 17 January 2020.
11. Wendy Baron; Walter Sickert (2006). Sickert: Paintings and Drawings. Yale University Press. p. 135. ISBN 0-300-11129-0.
12. Tara Moss (1 June 2014). The Fictional Woman. HarperCollins. p. 11. ISBN 978-1-4607-0058-7.
13. "LGBT History Month". LGBT History Month. Archived from the original on 18 January 2020. Retrieved 18 January 2020.

External links

Media related to Hereford Square at Wikimedia Commons