Great Russell Street
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Great Russell Street is a street in Bloomsbury, London, best known for being the location of the British Museum.[1] It runs between Tottenham Court Road (part of the A400 route) in the west, and Southampton Row (part of the A4200 route) in the east. It is one-way only (eastbound) between its western origin at Tottenham Court Road and Bloomsbury Street.[2]
The headquarters of the Trades Union Congress is located at Nos. 23–28 (Congress House).[3] The street is also the home of the Contemporary Ceramics Centre,[4] the gallery for the Craft Potters Association of Great Britain;[5] as well as the High Commission of Barbados to the United Kingdom.[6] The Queen Mary Hall and YWCA Central Club, built by Sir Edwin Lutyens between 1928 and 1932, was at No 16-22 (it is now a hotel).[7]
Great Russell Street has had a number of notable residents, especially during the Victorian era, including:
- W. H. Davies (1871–1940), poet and writer, lived at No. 14 (1916–22).[8]
- Randolph Caldecott (1846–1886), illustrator, lived at No. 46.[9]
- Thomas Henry Wyatt (1807–1880), architect, lived at No. 77.[10]
- Harry Jackson (1836–1885), actor, lived and died at 45 Great Russell Street.
- D. E. L. Haynes (1913–1994), classical scholar and British Museum curator, lived at No. 89.[11]
- Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822), poet, lodged at No. 119 (February–March 1818).[12]
- John Nash (1752–1835), architect, lived at 66 Great Russell Street, having designed 15–17 Bloomsbury Square and 66–71 Great Russell Street.[13]
- George Brettingham Sowerby II (1812–1884), naturalist, specialized in conchology lived at 50 Great Russell Street, as written in the front press of the work The Conchological Illustrations[14] where a display of full color illustrations and declarations according to Carl Linnaeus is presented.
