Malet Street Garden

Malet Street Garden was formerly rear gardens of Nos. 2-20 Gower Street, a terrace built c1780 for the Bedford Estate. No.2 was the home to Misses Rhoda and Agnes Garrett who, c1875, set up practice as interior decorators and published 'Suggestions for Home Decoration in Painting, Woodwork and Furniture'. It was also the residence of Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett, pioneer of women's suffrage. From 1924-30 No.10 was the residence of Lady Ottoline Morrell, literary hostess and patron of the arts. The site was purchased by the University of London from the Bedford Estate in 1951, and the sunken gardens to the rear of Nos.2-20 Gower Street became a private garden for the university. They are possibly sunken because brickearth here was of good quality and dug out for local building. The garden is bordered by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to the north, the University of London's Senate House to the east and the British Museum (q.v.) on Montague Place to the south.There are original wrought-iron railing stubs on the garden's boundary walls but all the original railings were removed during WWII to assist the war effort. The main entrance gate fronting Malet Street is probably later; its flanking stone piers have moulded panels with keystones and ball finials. Openwork cast and wrought-iron box piers with floral finials; scroll patterned gates with flowers.