An address for the privileged, a picnic spot for all
St James’s is a high-class area today, but in the 1660s, when the first Earl of St Albans received permission from King Charles II to build a new square, its pretensions were even greater. 50 years after St James’s Square was laid out, the townhouses of seven dukes and seven earls stood there. Blue plaques marking the houses of eminent people name three prime ministers who lived at no. 10 and next door at no. 12 a significant mathematician, Countess Lovelace, who was the daughter of Lord Byron. Several 18th-century houses with fine interiors have survived – no. 4, for example, once the home of Nancy Astor, who married into a super-rich dynasty of hotel and newspaper owners and became the first woman to sit in Parliament in 1919.
In the 19th century, St James’s Square lost its leading status to newly-built Belgravia, and the character of the quarter changed. Banks and offices moved in, and gentlemen’s clubs opened on the square. Two of them have remained: the Naval and Military Club at no. 4 (former members include Lawrence of Arabia, Rudyard Kipling and Ian Fleming) and the highly exclusive East India Club at no. 16. Since 1841, no. 14 has been home to the greatly respected London Library. This private lending library with stocks of over a million books and agreeable reading rooms was appreciated by Charles Darwin, Virginia Woolf and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and has been used by many modern writers. In no. 31 on the east side, General Eisenhower planned the invasion of Normandy in 1944.
Info
Address St James’s Square, north of Pall Mall, SW1Y 4LG | Public Transport Piccadilly Circus (Bakerloo, Piccadilly Line) | Hours Garden Mon–Fri 7.30am–4pm| Tip 5th View, a café and cocktail bar on the top floor of a huge Waterstone’s bookshop (203 Piccadilly, Mon–Sat 9am–9.30pm, Sun noon–5pm), serves decent food at reasonable prices.
On weekdays, when the privately owned garden at its centre is open to all, St James’s Square seems anything but elitist. Seated on benches by a path that circles the equestrian statue of William III, office employees, tourists and construction workers unpack their sandwiches and take the plastic lids off their caffè latte, or lounge on the lawn beneath plane trees.
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