Smith Square is a square in

Westminster Westminster is an area of Central London, part of the wider City of Westminster. The area, which extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street, has many visitor attractions and historic landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Buck ...

, London, 250 metres south-southwest of the

Palace of Westminster The Palace of Westminster serves as the meeting place for both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Informally known as the Houses of Parliament, the Palace lies on the north bank ...

. 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, a Baroque surplus church, which has inside 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 and the

Local Government Association The Local Government Association (LGA) is the national membership body for local authorities. Its core membership is made up of 339 English councils and the 22 Welsh councils through the Welsh Local Government Association. The LGA is p ...

. 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, 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 John Smith is a common personal name. It is also commonly used as a placeholder name and pseudonym, and is sometimes used in the United States and the United Kingdom as a term for an average person. It may refer to: People :''In chronological ...

, who was Conservative M.P. for Cities of London and Westminster from 1965 to 1970, lived at № 1. The campaigning journalist William Thomas Stead lived at № 5 from 1904 until his death on board the

Titanic RMS ''Titanic'' was a British passenger liner, operated by the White Star Line, which sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912 after striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, Unite ...

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 politician. ''The Times'' obituary ...

, 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 company. It was, for much of its history, the largest manufacturer in Britain. It was formed by the merger of four leading British chemical companies in 1926. Its headquarters were at M ...

(ICI). ICI leased it to the government in 1987, and it is currently headquarters for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Sharing the western part of the south side is Transport House which from 1928 to 1980 head-quartered the Labour Party then the TGWU 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 Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ), formerly known as Conservative Central Office (CCO), is the headquarters of the British Conservative Party, housing its central staff and committee members, including campaign coordinators and ma ...

, 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".

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