Russell Square and the Hotel Russell: Victorian Terracotta Grandeur
Why is it significant?
Walk along the wide gravel avenues beneath the canopy of two-hundred-year-old London plane trees in Russell Square, pausing by the dancing water jets of the central fountain.
Key Facts
| Place | Russell Square and the Hotel Russell: Victorian Terracotta Grandeur |
|---|---|
| Address | Russell Square, London WC1B 5EH, United Kingdom |
| Geo Coordinates | 51.52170, -0.12450 |
| Part of Walk | Literary Bloomsbury & The British Museum: Rosetta Stone to Virginia Woolf |
| Generated | Generated |
Walk along the wide gravel avenues beneath the canopy of two-hundred-year-old London plane trees in Russell Square, pausing by the dancing water jets of the central fountain. Look eastward through the foliage at the towering, palace-like facade of the Kimpton Fitzroy Hotel, built in eighteen ninety-eight in opulent golden thé-au-lait architectural terracotta.
Architect Charles Fitzroy Doll designed this lavish Victorian palace with extravagant detail; he went on to design the first-class dining saloon on the ill-fated Titanic. If you walk into the hotel lobby today, you can see a bronze dragon staircase banister ornament identical to the one that plunged to the bottom of the Atlantic in nineteen twelve.
At number twenty-four Russell Square stood the publishing house of Faber and Faber, where poet T. S. Eliot spent decades working as an editor, discovering and mentoring generations of English literary giants.
Walk northward past Tavistock Place into Gordon Square, the spiritual birthplace of the Bloomsbury Group.