Tavistock Square was the scene of one of the four suicide bombings on 7 July 2005. The bomb was detonated by 18-year-old Hasib Hussain on a double-decker bus bearing route number 30; it had been diverted from its normal route along Euston Road because of traffic disruption by the other three bombings at tube stations. The bomb exploded immediately outside the British Medical Association building, many of whose staff came out to give what help they could. The explosion killed 13 passengers, plus Hussain himself. Many others were injured.[5] In September 2018, a memorial honouring the victims and the efforts of those who gave assistance was unveiled in Tavistock Square Gardens, replacing a plaque that had been fixed to the railings outside BMA House, opposite to the new site.[6]
Public artedit
The centre-piece of the gardens is a statue of Mahatma Gandhi, sculpted by Fredda Brilliant and installed in 1968. The hollow pedestal was intended, and is used, for people to leave floral tributes to the peace campaigner and nonviolent resister to oppression in South Africa and British rule in India.[7]
These three features have led to the square unofficially being regarded by some as a peace park or garden, and annual ceremonies are held at each of these memorials.[8]
A bust of the writer Virginia Woolf, cast from a 1931 sculpture by Stephen Tomlin (1901–1937), was unveiled in 2004 at the southwest corner of the square. Woolf lived at 52 Tavistock Square between 1924 and 1939. From there she and her husband Leonard Woolf ran the Hogarth Press, which became a prominent and influential publisher at the forefront of modernist fiction and poetry (publishing T.S. Eliot, E.M. Forster and Katherine Mansfield among others) and translating the works of Sigmund Freud into English.[10]
Woburn House, on the north side of the square contains the headquarters of Universities UK, the conference of universityrectors, and the headquarters of the Medical Schools Council, an organisation which represents the interests and ambitions of UK medical schools.[16]
The Tavistock Hotel, a branch of Imperial London Hotels, completed in 1951 is on the south side of the square.[17]
Lynton House[18] and Tavis House,[19] both substantial red-brick office blocks on the east side, were built in the mid-20th century.[20]
^"'Tavistock Square', in Survey of London; Volume 21, the Parish of St Pancras Part 3: Tottenham Court Road and Neighbourhood, ed. J R Howard Roberts and Walter H Godfrey". London. 1949. p. 97-98. Retrieved 15 July 2018.
^"Tavistock Square". Bedford Estates. Retrieved 15 July 2018.
^ ab"Tavistock Centre". Lost Hospitals of London. Retrieved 15 July 2018.
^Richard Lydekker. Alumni Cantabrigienses. 15 September 2011. ISBN 9781108036146. Retrieved 15 July 2018.
^"7/7 Anniversary: UK's Risk of Terror Attack Higher Now than Days of London Bombings'". Yorkshire Post. 4 July 2015. Retrieved 15 July 2018.
^"7/7 London bombings: Memorial for bus explosion victims unveiled". BBC News. 12 September 2018. Retrieved 5 December 2018.
^ ab"Peace Garden at Tavistock Square". Atlas Obscura. Retrieved 15 July 2018.
^"Conscientious objectors' stone". Ppu.org.uk. Retrieved 17 December 2017.
^"Virginia Woolf bust". London Remembers. Retrieved 15 July 2018.
^"Memorial to Dame Louisa Aldrich Blake in Tavistock Square Gardens". British Listed Buildings. Retrieved 3 October 2017.
^"'Tavistock House', Survey of London: volume 21: The parish of St Pancras part 3: Tottenham Court Road & neighbourhood". 1949. p. 99-100. Retrieved 9 January 2010.