Golden Square is a historic Soho square, dating from the 1670s.
Golden Square was built on land formerly used for grazing. Its name is a corruption of "gelding."
Construction began in 1675 and was completed by the early 18th century. Soon after its building it became an important embassy district in the early 18th century. Britain’s oldest ally, Portugal, opened its embassy in the square.
Originally home to upper-class residents like Barbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland, James Brydges (later 1st Duke of Chandos) and Henry St John, 1st Viscount St John, the aristocracy had moved towards Mayfair by the mid-18th century. Foreign embassies then established themselves around the square. In the 19th century, Golden Square became popular with local musicians and instrument makers, and by the 20th century, it was a centre for woollen merchants. A statue of King George II, designed by John Van Nost, has stood in the centre of the square since 1753.
William Pitt the Elder was born in Golden Square in 1708.
The square features in the works of Charles Dickens: ’David Copperfield’ and ’The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby’. In the latter, it is the square where Ralph Nickleby lives in a spacious house.
Lord Macaulay, in his 1848 book The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, writes that in 1685, 20 years after the Great Plague, the square inspired terror:
On the east was a field not to be passed without a shudder by any Londoner of that age. There, as in a place far from the haunts of men, had been dug, twenty years before, when the great plague was raging, a pit into which the dead carts had nightly shot corpses by scores. It was popularly believed that the earth was deeply tainted with infection, and could not be disturbed without imminent risk to human life. No foundations were laid there till two generations had passed without any return of the pestilence, and till the ghastly spot had long been surrounded by buildings.
