Smith Square is a square in

Westminster Westminster is the main settlement of the City of Westminster in Central London, Central London, England. It extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street and has many famous landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Buckingham Palace, ...

, London, 250 metres south-southwest of the

Palace of Westminster The Palace of Westminster is the meeting place of the Parliament of the United Kingdom and is located in London, England. It is commonly called the Houses of Parliament after the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two legislative ch ...

. Most of its

garden A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is ''control''. The garden can incorporate bot ...

interior is filled by

St John's, Smith Square Smith Square Hall (formerly St John's Smith Square) is a concert hall in the centre of Smith Square, City of Westminster, Westminster, London. Its name was changed by its current operator, Sinfonia Smith Square, in 2024. Originally a church, ...

, a

Baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...

surplus church, the inside of which has been converted to a concert hall. Most adjoining buildings (thus sharing its address) are offices, with the focus on organisations lobbying or serving the government. In the mid-20th century, the square hosted the headquarters of the two largest parties of British politics, and it is now hosts much of the

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is a Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom, ministerial department of the government of the United Kingdom. It is responsible for environmental quality, environmenta ...

and the

Local Government Association The Local Government Association (LGA) is the national membership body for local government in England, local authorities in England and Wales. Its core membership is made up of 317 English councils and the 22 Welsh councils through the ...

. It has a pedestrian or mixed approach to the four sides and another approach to the north.

History

The square was named after the Smith family: a family of bankers originally from Nottingham on whose land it was developed in the early eighteenth century. Its building up was arranged by Sir James Smith around 1726. №s 1 to 9, forming the north side, survive from this phase.

Buildings

Sir John Smith, who was Conservative M.P. for Cities of London and Westminster from 1965 to 1970, lived at № 1. The campaigning journalist

William Thomas Stead William Thomas Stead (5 July 184915 April 1912) was an English newspaper editor who, as a pioneer of investigative journalism, became a controversial figure of the Victorian era. Stead published a series of hugely influential campaigns whilst e ...

lived at № 5 from 1904 until his death on board the

Titanic RMS ''Titanic'' was a British ocean liner that sank in the early hours of 15 April 1912 as a result of striking an iceberg on her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, United States. Of the estimated 2,224 passengers a ...

in 1912. Another famous resident was

Rab Butler Richard Austen Butler, Baron Butler of Saffron Walden (9 December 1902 – 8 March 1982), also known as R. A. Butler and familiarly known from his initials as Rab, was a prominent British Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party politici ...

, the Conservative Deputy Prime Minister. № 17 - Nobel House - cross-corner block built in 1928, for newly-formed

Imperial Chemical Industries Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) was a British Chemical industry, chemical company. It was, for much of its history, the largest manufacturer in Britain. Its headquarters were at Millbank in London. ICI was listed on the London Stock Exchange ...

(ICI). ICI leased it to the government in 1987, and it is currently headquarters for the

. Sharing the western part of the south side is Transport House which from 1928 to 1980 head-quartered the Labour Party then the

TGWU The Transport and General Workers' Union (TGWU or T&G) was one of the largest general trade unions in the United Kingdom and Ireland—where it was known as the Amalgamated Transport and General Workers' Union (ATGWU)—with 900,000 members (a ...

until the 1990s. It is now the headquarters of the

and is known as Local Government House. №s 32-34 served as Conservative Central Office, the Conservative Party's headquarters between 1958 and 2003. It stood empty until 2007 when it was sold for £30.5m to Harcourt Developments who planned to redevelop it as flats before the 2008 credit crunch hit. It is now "Europe House". № 36 - Mulberry House - designed by Sir

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 memorials ...

and constructed in 1911 for

Reginald McKenna Reginald McKenna (6 July 1863 – 6 September 1943) was a British banker and Liberal politician. His first Cabinet post under Henry Campbell-Bannerman was as President of the Board of Education, after which he served as First Lord of the Admira ...

, a senior politician who later became chairman of the

Midland Bank Midland Bank plc was one of the Big Four (banks)#United Kingdom, Big Four banking groups in the United Kingdom for most of the 20th century. It is now part of HSBC. The bank was founded as the Birmingham and Midland Bank in Union Street, Birming ...

. It was later bought by Henry Mond, 2nd Baron Melchett who, in conjunction with his wife, Gwen, commissioned an elaborate interior re-decoration by the architect Darcy Braddell. The result has been described as "one of the most important

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...

interiors in London." It gained notoriety for the sculpture "Scandal", designed by

Charles Sargeant Jagger Charles Sargeant Jagger (17 December 1885 – 16 November 1934) was a British sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically prese ...

which is now housed in the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen ...

. The

Grade II In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

listed building went up for sale of £25 million in 2015.

References

External links

* {{coord, 51, 29, 46, N, 0, 7, 37, W, type:landmark_region:GB-WSM, display=title Squares in the City of Westminster

History

Buildings

See also

References

External links