Victoria Square

Victoria Square is a modest town square of stuccoed terraces built in 1837-39 designed by Matthew Wyatt. Part of the C19th development of the Grosvenor Estate land in Belgravia, Victoria Square remains residential while much of the surrounding area has changed to mixed use over time. The centre of the square was originally an unpaved open space, which was later paved, and in the 1950s a raised area was created to discourage parking. Until recently it remained as a raised paved platform, from which sprouted two small trees, one of these Catalpas still remaining and now mature. The other was replaced in c.2000 by a new Catalpa.

In 2003 residents of surrounding houses raised money and gained planning permission to create a central garden in keeping with the squares designed by Thomas Cubitt found in the area. Completed in 2005/6 and designed by John Rich and Associates, the small garden has a formal, symmetrical layout, with paving, four raised beds with planting, seating, and at each end the Catalpa tree in a raised bed. The enclosure is surrounded by replica iron railings and lamp posts, the railings having a spear finial to match the railings in front of the surrounding houses of the square. A bronze statue of the young Queen Victoria by French artist Catherine Laugel was erected in 2007, depicted at the age she would have been when the square was first laid out in 1839, when she had just ascended to the throne. An inscription reads:' Victoria Regina, Regnum victoriosum, Incipiens'. There is also a bronze plaque to poet Thomas Campbell who lived at No. 8 Victoria Square. Another famous resident was author Ian Fleming who was living at No. 16 Victoria Square when he began writing his James Bond novels. The Leicester-born musician John Ella (b.1802), lived at 9 Victoria Square, where he died in 1888.

The garden is managed by a garden committee, with residents of Victoria Square paying an annual charge to Victoria Square Gardens Ltd. Current planting in the garden's four flowerbeds includes Magnolia sp, Nandina ‘Firepower', Sisyrinchium sp and roses, with seasonal bedding plants, which in March 2011were cyclamen, primroses, daffodils and pansies. Cistus sp occupy the 4 corners of the central area and beneath the Catalpa are shade tolerant Sarcococca sp. Beech hedges are planted along the outside edges of the beds and along the side in the 2 larger southern beds.