Finsbury Circus is a park in the

Coleman Street Ward Coleman Street is one of the 25 ancient wards of the City of London and lies on the City's northern boundary with the London Borough of Islington. The ward, which includes land lying on either side of the former city wall, takes its name from ...

of the

City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London fr ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. The 2 acre park is the largest public open space within the City's boundaries. It is not to be confused with

Finsbury Square Finsbury Square is a square in Finsbury in central London which includes a six-rink grass bowling green. It was developed in 1777 on the site of a previous area of green space to the north of the City of London known as Finsbury Fields, in the pa ...

, just north of the City, or

Finsbury Park Finsbury Park is a public park in the London neighbourhood of Harringay. It is in the area formerly covered by the historic parish of Hornsey, succeeded by the Municipal Borough of Hornsey. It was one of the first of the great London parks ...

, a few miles away.

History and features

The circus was created in 1812 on the site of the former Lower Moorfields, an area which was originally part of the Manor of Finsbury, a manor which had existed since the twelfth century, on which the second

Bethlem Royal Hospital Bethlem Royal Hospital, also known as St Mary Bethlehem, Bethlehem Hospital and Bedlam, is a psychiatric hospital in London. Its famous history has inspired several horror books, films and TV series, most notably '' Bedlam'', a 1946 film with ...

had stood since 1675. The "circus" of the name reflects the elliptical shape of the space, similar to the circus venues of ancient Rome, in this case with a long axis lying west-east. The original houses, the last of which were demolished in 1921, were intended for merchants and gentlemen, but were soon broken up internally and leased for solicitors and other professions. The gardens, featuring a circuit of lime trees, were developed by William Montague to the specifications of the architect

George Dance the Younger George Dance the Younger RA (1 April 1741 – 14 January 1825) was an English architect and surveyor as well as a portraitist. The fifth and youngest son of the architect George Dance the Elder, he came from a family of architects, artists a ...

in 1815. In 1819 the

London Institution The London Institution was an educational institution founded in London in 1806 (not to be confused with the British Institution for Promoting the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom founded the previous year, with which it shared some founders). It ...

moved into "ingeniously planned and elegantly detailed" premises designed by William Brooks at the north end of the circus; it closed in 1912 and the buildings were used for the University of London until their demolition in 1936. Fronting onto the circus from the 1820s was the substantial South Place Unitarian Chapel, erected under the leadership of

William Johnson Fox William Johnson Fox (1 March 1786 – 3 June 1864) was an English Unitarian minister, politician, and political orator. Early life Fox was born at Uggeshall Farm, Wrentham, near Southwold, Suffolk on 1 March 1786. His parents were strict Cal ...

; this evolved into

Conway Hall Ethical Society The Conway Hall Ethical Society, formerly the South Place Ethical Society, based in London at Conway Hall, is thought to be the oldest surviving freethought organisation in the world and is the only remaining ethical society in the United Kin ...

The circus was opened as a public park in the early 20th century, under powers granted to the

City of London Corporation The City of London Corporation, officially and legally the Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of the City of London, is the municipal governing body of the City of London, the historic centre of London and the location of much of the United King ...

in the ''City of London (Various Powers) Act 1900''. The gardens had previously been a private space for the use of the freeholders or lease-holders of the surrounding buildings, who objected to their

compulsory purchase Compulsion may refer to: * Compulsive behavior, a psychological condition in which a person does a behavior compulsively, having an overwhelming feeling that they must do so. * Obsessive–compulsive disorder, a mental disorder characterized by ...

, fearing that their use by the public would create a nuisance which would lower the value of their property. The campaign to make them a public space was led by

Alpheus Morton Sir Alpheus Cleophas Morton (12 March 1840 – 26 April 1923) was a British architect and surveyor, and a Liberal Party politician. He was active in local government in London from the 1880s until his death, and sat in the House of Commons in t ...

, deputy-Alderman for

Farringdon Without __NOTOC__ Farringdon Without is the most westerly Ward of the City of London, its suffix ''Without'' reflects its origin as lying beyond the City's former defensive walls. It was first established in 1394 to administer the suburbs west of Ludga ...

and a member of the Corporations' Streets Committee, and the circus became known with the Corporation as "Morton's Park". Fronting the northwest quadrant of the oval, with fronts on roads entering the Circus from the west stands

Edwin Lutyens Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens ( ; 29 March 1869 – 1 January 1944) was an English architect known for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era. He designed many English country houses, war memori ...

's massive Britannic House (1921–25, listed Grade II), designed for the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, which became BP; its free-standing architectural sculptures are by

Francis Derwent Wood Francis Derwent Wood (15 October 1871– 19 February 1926) was a British sculptor. Biography Early life Wood was born at Keswick in Cumbria and studied in Germany and returned to London in 1887 to work under Édouard Lantéri and Sir Thomas ...

. It was built on the site of the last remaining original houses, and is now home to international law firm

Stephenson Harwood Stephenson Harwood LLP is a law firm with over 1,100 people worldwide, including more than 190 partners. Headquartered in London, United Kingdom, with eight offices across Asia, Europe and the Middle East. In 2020/21 it achieved total revenues ...

It has a

Lawn Bowls Bowls, also known as lawn bowls or lawn bowling, is a sport in which the objective is to roll biased balls so that they stop close to a smaller ball called a "jack" or "kitty". It is played on a bowling green, which may be flat (for "flat-gre ...

club in the centre, which has existed in the gardens since 1925. A

bandstand A bandstand (sometimes music kiosk) is a circular, semicircular or polygonal structure set in a park, garden, pier, or indoor space, designed to accommodate musical bands performing concerts. A simple construction, it both creates an orname ...

, built in 1955, is located nearby.

Railway stations

The nearest Tube station is

Moorgate Moorgate was one of the City of London's northern gates in its defensive wall, the last to be built. The gate took its name from the Moorfields, an area of marshy land that lay immediately north of the wall. The gate was demolished in 1762, b ...

, 150 metres to the west, with

Liverpool Street Station Liverpool Street station, also known as London Liverpool Street, is a central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station in the north-eastern corner of the City of London, in the ward of Bishopsgate Without. It is the t ...

about 350 metres to the east.

Events

Finsbury Circus has been used as the finish point for the Miglia Quadrato each year. In recent years it has also played host to the start of the Miglia Quadrato since the event start was removed from Smithfield Market.

Crossrail

During the years 1860–65 Finsbury Circus was threatened with demolition in favour of a railway station; public protests averted the loss, but in 1869 the oval was tunnelled for the Metropolitan Railway. From 2010 to 2020 the central section of the gardens were taken up for the construction of the Liverpool Street

Crossrail Crossrail is a railway construction project mainly in central London. Its aim is to provide a high-frequency hybrid commuter rail and rapid transit system crossing the capital from suburbs on the west to east, by connecting two major railway ...

station. This included the excavation of a 16m diameter, 42m depth shaft to allow the construction of the platform tunnels beneath. The project was due to be completed in September 2018, but due to mismanagement it missed that deadline, going over budget by £896,700 as of April 2019. The work was finally completed in 2020. In July 2020, the City of London Corporation announced the park would reopen to the public in August 2020, after a call in June for design proposals to transform the gardens into a sustainable multipurpose space. The winner of the design competition was announced in October 2020 as Architecture00 + Studio Weave, with ReardonSmith Landscape, whose plan includes a one-storey garden pavilion constructed from natural materials.

References

{{City of London Parks and open spaces in the City of London Squares in the City of London Bowling greens in England Crescents (architecture)