Bloomsbury is one of my favorite areas of London. The place exudes culture and is a veritable storehouse of literary associations. The literary company is almost beyond compare for in this fascinating quarter of London you will find links with Dickens and Thackeray;Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw; George Orwell, W.B. Yeats and the great T.S.Eliot; Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Circle. Of the latter it was once said they lived in highly elegant squares and loved in triangles.
The area certainly houses very handsome looking Georgian Squares and a bustling little warren of streets in the Museum area. The name Bloomsbury actually derives from Blemondisberi, meaning the ’’bury’’ or manor of William Blemond, the 13 th century landowner.A succession of manor houses have been built on the site ever since, including that of the Earl of Southampton, who, in 1660, laid out beyond his new mansion a handsome square that is today Bloomsbury Square. Although it was not the first London Square to be constructed, it was the very first so-called, and with its network of secondary service streets, established a new and distinct pattern in London’s evolutionary development Explore the area on foot between New Oxford Street to the south, up as far as Euston Road to the north, and you will come across a succession of similar squares. At the centre of each, a private garden or park bordered nearly always by tall.terraced houses.
At the heart of this district there are, of course, two very famous institutions : the University of London including several colleges such as Birkbeck, University College, The School of Eastern European and Slavonic Studies and the School of Oriental and African Studies and the world famous British Museum. The latter is huge with its national collections of antiquities, prints, drawings, coins and medals ’’borrowed, purchased or perhaps stolen ’’from all corners of the globe. With a reputed three miles of galleries it could well be prudent to take the go-minute guided overviews. Star features of this fabulous Museum include the Egyptian Room, the very controversial Elgin Marbles- Greece wants them back- in the Duveen Gallery and the legendary Black Obelisk, which dates from around 860 BC inb the Nimrud Gallery. The Museum shop is where you can purchase postcards, prints, and even the likes of silver-plated Roman platters from the Mildenhall Treasure, Greek busts of Socrates and Eros, Byzantine silver jewellery, Celtic earrings or maybe a 12 th century chess set-all in replica, of course, although at first glance you might not think so. Close to the Museum are some splendid little cafes and restaurants- the Coffee Gallery at 23 Museum Street is very convenient -whilst Bloomsbury is also home to some of the most congenial pubs in town. The area is also a real paradise for book buffs with Dillon’s University Bookshop.at the northern end of Gower street and a host of specialist book stores. The Print Room sells both old and rare books and there are several other shops in Museum Street that sell the likes of architectural books and drawings, rare books and original watercolours.
There are book stores specializing in the Islamic and Jewish religions, , Oriental Studies and other diverse subjects. There are also a few shops specialising in quality fashions including knitwear from Scotland. Bloomsbury is also near Tottenham Court Road which is well known for furniture shops and stores specializing in electronic products. Bloomsbury, especially the area around Russell Square, will be known to many North American visitors as an accommodation base for it is home to a number of reasonably-priced hotels and guest houses. Reasonably priced that is in comparison to London hotel prices in some other areas which are undeniably very high Recently there has been a ’’New Kid on the Block’’ which has the critics raving. This is the fine 76-room -my hotel- at No 11-13 Bayley Street in Bedford Square. The owner employed design guru Terence Conran ’s CD partnership and a fenf shui specialist, William Spear, to create a oasis of tranquility in Bloomsbury, which also is a fusion of East and west. Hotel guests are really pampered: their favorite music is on the CD player, a mobile phone, a room safe and a laptop computer is provided. Fusion cuisine is also the order is the order of the day in the hotel’s Mychi restaurant with dishes ranging from Chicken Yakitori to Spiced Lamb Shank with Chinese Rice. Room rates at this hotel start from around US$230 per night. Well unfortunately we must come to the end of our little tour of Bloomsbury but if you visit London do take some time to explore this interesting district.