Members of the Cambridge Society explored beautiful Bloomsbury on a walking tour led by Blue Badge Guide Caroline Piper. The weather was perfect, a balmy spring evening, but the quiet, green garden squares were plagued with pollen blowing in the breeze so that at points it resembled a Christmas film set, with artificial snow flurries settling on everyone’s hair. Despite the sneezing we persevered and enjoyed discovering this historic and peaceful neighbourhood.
We learnt how the area was developed in the 18th and 19th centuries by the Russell family who ensured they wouldn’t be forgotten by stamping their family name, titles (Dukes of Bedford and Marquesses of Tavistock) and country estate (Woburn Abbey) all over the neighbourhood; Russell Square, Bedford Way, Tavistock Square and Woburn Place….. We then learnt about some of the great philanthropists who shaped the area; Sir Hans Sloane whose collection founded the British Museum, Captain James Smith who left a bequest for chimney sweeps, Dr Charles West who founded Great Ormond Street Hospital and Captain Thomas Coram who founded the Foundling Hospital, Britain’s first home for abandoned children. Mothers forced by poverty and desperation to abandon their children would often leave a token pinned to their baby’s clothes, a simple every day object such as a coin or a button, in the hopes that this would help them identify their child should they ever be in a position to return and collect them. This is remembered today in the touching tiny bronze sculpture called Baby Things, Mitten by Tracy Emin on the railings outside the Foundling Hospital Museum.
Our tour then took in some of the neighbourhood’s great literary residents including TS Eliot, George Orwell and, of course, the Bloomsbury Group who first began meeting in Gordon Square. We admired the beautiful statue of Virginia Woolf who thrived on Bloomsbury’s bohemian, cosmopolitan character after her return in 1924, much preferring it to her previous home in the London suburb of Richmond, which she brilliantly described as, “between Richmond and death, I choose death”:
We concluded our tour with the allegorical sculpture over the entrance of the British Museum, which celebrates the enlightenment and advancement of Man through learning and knowledge – hopefully we were all suitably improved by the tour!
Organised by Caroline Piper