• At the top of Frith Street you enter  Soho Square. Take the  road to your right.

 

The Soho Square neighbourhood is still the most prestigious and expensive address for London’s media organisations.

 

The origins of the name Soho Square are confusing as it is thought to have originally been named King’s Square after Charles II or its developer, Gregory King. There are also references to it being called Monmouth Square because one of Charles’s sons, the Duke of Monmouth lived in a house here. What is known is that the building of the square commenced in 1681. Some of the finest and biggest town houses of London were erected here. Numbers 10 are 15 are the original buildings. Other houses have since been modified, renovated or replaced in a sensitive fashion. 

 

As you turn into the Square note the imposing building on the corner of Greek Street. The House of Charity, now known as the House of St. Barnabas-in-Soho, was established in 1846 for the relief of the destitute and the houseless poor in London.   ///calculating.panic.candy

 

St Patrick’s was the first Catholic church built in England after the reformation (1792). The French Protestant Church of 1550 (shown opposite) is the only remaining Huguenot church in London, the first of which was founded under a charter issued by Edward VI (1547-1553).   ///depend.idea.chef

 

Mary Seacole, (shown here), was a heroine of the Crimean War. She lived at number 14 Soho Square and a blue plaque celebrates her well-known devotion to the troops.   ///frock.share.shin

 

At number 20 you’ll see a plaque commemorating Arthur Onslow who was a long-serving Speaker of the House of Commons in the seventeenth century.   ///tiles.decent.demand

 

Number 32 displays a plaque erected to the memory of a famous eighteenth century botanist - Joseph Banks and two other famous British botanists.   ///when.starts.upgrading

   

•  At the top of the square opposite Soho Street turn into the gardens...

 

At the centre of the garden, there is a distinctive half-timbered gardener's hut (shown opposite) and a 1681 statue of Charles II by the Danish sculptor Caius Gabriel Cibber. This was removed in 1835 but restored to its original position in 1938. During the summer, the square hosts open-air free concerts and on most sunny days is filled with office workers taking a lunch break.