Nearest
Underground Station - Tottenham Court Road, Central and Northern linesGreat Russell Street: Walk northwards up Tottenham Court Road until you see the towers of the YMCA on your right at the entrance to Great Russell Street. Turn into Great Russell Street.
Walk on down Great Russell Street. On your right you will find what was the YWCA Central Club. Close by is the Trades Union Congress. Turn right down Dyott street, look to your left for the Model Houses.
Return to , and walk on down Great Russell Street until you come to the British Museum on your left and Helen Graham House (YWCA - opened 1985) on your right.
Now turn back and right to Bloomsbury Street. You will enter Bedford Square.
Great Russell Street also houses a number of treasures - although the first signs are not that promising from Tottenham Court Road.
On the corner we find the concrete towers of the Central YMCA (on the site of an older YMCA built in 1911-12). One of the founders of the YMCA, George Williams lived close by on Russell Square (the site of the house is now marked with a blue plaque). See George Williams and the Central YMCA.
A few yards further up the street is the old YWCA Central Club (16-22) which for some time housed the headquarters of the movement (designed by Lutyens). See Mary Jane Kinnaird, Emma Robarts and the YWCA.
Further down on the same side is the Trades Union Congress.
Just a few metres down Dyott Street (beside the TUC), on the corner with Streatham Street, you can see some Model Houses for Families built in 1848-9 (to a design by Henry Roberts). It contained 54 flats each with two bedrooms, a living room and scullery (off which there was a wc). These were some of the first buildings put up by the Society for Improving the Condition of the Working Classes. The Society was, in fact, a company formed by Lord Shaftesbury in the belief that ‘good sanitation and proper working class housing were compatible with a fair return on capital’ This particular area - the 500 or 600 metres south of here to Five Dials (where Maud Stanley worked) contained some horrific housing conditions and was the site of the original and notorious ‘Rookery’ depicted by Hogarth as Gin Lane.
Return to Great Russell Street and visit the splendour of The British Museum. The Museum opened in 1759.
Bedford Square to Euston: At the top of the Square (north) cross to the central area. Look for the building on the corner of Gower Street and Montagu Place - home to Henry Cavendish.
Turn back to Gower Street.
Continue walking north entering Gower Street.
Take the second turning on your left - Store Street. Take the second turning on your right - Alfred Place.
Return to Gower Street, cross over the road and walk down Keppel Street. (see Trollope and Orwell).
Turn left up Malet Street. On your right you will see Birkbeck College on your left the rear of the Royal Association of Dramatic Arts (RADA) Founded in 1904 it moved to the Gower Street premises in 1906.
Walk down the side of the College into Torrington Square. To your right you can see the University of London Institute of Education (with the largest collection of books about education in the UK). At Number 27 you will find the Thomas Coram Research Unit (see below for more on Coram) and number 30 the home of the poet Christina Rosetti (from 1874 - 1896).
Walk north up Torrington Square and turn right onto Gordon Square.
From there walk on (east) to Tavistock Square.
Cross to Tavistock Place in the south eastern corner of the square. Look out for Mary Ward House.
Continue down Tavistock Place until the junction with Marchmont Street. To the south lies the Brunswick Centre and Brunswick Square.
Turn left (north) up Marchmont Street.
We are going to turn left here. However, to the north of the gardens is Hambleton Place, which was the old home of the National Union of Teachers - and headquarters for a time to the National Association of Girls and Mixed Clubs.
Walk around Cartwright Gardens and turn left down Burton Place and then right onto Burton Street. (Burton was one of the key builders in the area). Then turn left into Dukes Road. Take the first turn left onto Woburn Walk. Here we find a row of Regency shops. Amongst its inhabitants was the poet W. B. Yeats (Number 5: 1895 - 1919).
Turn right onto Upper Woburn Place. You will pass the Greek Revival St Pancras Church - said at the time to be the most expensive church constructed. Then turn right onto Euston Road. On the left-hand side down towards St Pancras station there is the new British Library. Cross Euston Road to the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital. (formerly the New Hospital for Women). Founded by the first woman doctor and staffed by women, it came to this site in 1888. It was named after the founder when she died Walk down Churchway.
The area in front of you - across to St Pancras and north to Crowndale Road is Somers Town. To your right is Euston.
Immediately ahead of you is a single apartment block - Grafton Buidlings (at the corner with Grafton Place). See Josephine Macalister Brew.
Walk on to Euston.
We have entered Bloomsbury here. Again there are rich pickings for those interested in the development of informal education. First there is Bedford Square.
The Square has been the home to the headquarters organizations of a number of voluntary and youth organizations including the National Association of Boys Clubs (No 17)and The Girls’ Life Brigade (No. 10). The square is the only complete Georgian Square in Bloomsbury.
The building on the corner of Gower Street and Montagu Place was home to Henry Cavendish, the scientist who discovered the contents of water (H2O), until his death in 1810. Later, in 1849, a ladies college was opened - Bedford College - which became part of the University of London in 1880.
We are now walking north up Gower Street. Ruskin described it as the depth in street architecture. Blue plaques abound - for example on your right at No 2: Millicent Garrett Fawcett, the campaigner for women’s rights. (One of her sisters was Elizabeth Garrett Anderson the first English doctor - see below).
Close by, in Alfred Place, Lily Montagu ran the West Central Jewish Youth Club (and Settlement). The building does not exist any more - having been bombed in 1941 with the loss of 27 lives. Montagu was central to development of what is now Youth Clubs UK - and placed a particular emphasis on campaigning and working for the improvement of the working conditions of young women. See Lily Montagu and West Central.
We now turn down Keppel Street. Anthony Trollope was born at No. 6. Ahead of you is the University of London Senate House which houses the University Library and administration. Completed in 1936, it was used as the Ministry of Information during the Second World War and is said to be the model for the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s 1984.
In
Malet Street we can find Birkbeck College - formerly the London Mechanics
Institute (founded in 1823). The Institute played an important role in the
development of educational opportunities for adults - and from early on had the
characteristic mix of classes, library and social opportunities. See
George Birkbeck and the London Mechanics Institute.
At the top of Malet Street is Gordon Square. On the left (west) side of the square you will see the former University Church of Christ the King. It began as a cathedral of a smallish sect - the Catholic Apostolic Church. Just beyond this church, at number 14 Gordon Square, is Dr Williams Library (initially in Cripplegate in the City - 1729-1865). It is an important source of original theological, ecclesiastical and non-conformist material.
The square is blue plaque country - especially commemorating the so called Bloomsbury Group of writers, intellectuals and artists. Amongst the Squares inhabitants have been Lytton Strachey (No 51), Bertrand Russell (No. 57) and John Maynard Keynes (No 46).
Next to Gordon Square is Tavistock Square. Former inhabitants have included Leonard and Virginia Woolf (No. 52) and Charles Dickens (in the old Tavistock House on the east side - demolished in 1901). In the garden, the centrepiece is a statue of Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi had visited the area on more than one occasion to meet and talk with Indian students at the Indian YMCA - now situated in Fitzroy Square, but then on at the top end of Gower Street.
Close by, in Tavistock Place, is Mary Ward House (originally known as the Passmore Edwards Settlement and founded in 1890). Aside from being one of the few art nouveau buildings in London - the settlement was important for a number of innovations. It had the first properly equipped classrooms for children with disabilities living in the community; and it was central to the development of play centres for children. See Mary Ward and the Passmore Edwards Settlement.
Across Marchment Street is Brunswick Square. The Square contains the Thomas Coram Foundation for Children (and the Coram Museum which includes work by Hogarth, Gainsborough and Reynolds). Coram established the Foundling Hospital in 1742 buying some 56 acres of land. On the site of hospital now are Coram’s Fields - a childrens playground (where unaccompanied adults are not allowed) and park. To your immediate right on Marchmont Street you will see the Marchmont Community Centre (62 Marchmont Street). This developed out of the neighbourhood councils initiative in the 1970s and is home to a number of projects including the Kings Cross Youth Project.
In the late 1800s this area was under the grip of the notorious Judd Street
Gang. Within a few metres you enter Cartwright Gardens - on your right are
various University halls of residence - the first of which (No. 2 Cartwright
Square) stands on the site of Rowland Hill’s home from 1837-9 (the originator of
the penny post - and the one of the founders of the Society for the Diffusion of
Useful Knowledge - 1826). During a similar period, Edwin Chadwick, the sanitary
reformer, lived next door at number 1. Chadwick’s Report on the Sanitary
Conditions of the Labouring Population of Great Britain (1842) was one of the
most influential social documents of the nineteenth century. He sought to
promote better housing conditions and sanitation arrangements - linking poor
conditions with the rise of the mob and to poor economic returns. He also wished
to promote more ‘healthy’ or 
‘rational’
forms of recreation. One of his many interests was the provision of parks and
play spaces - the lack of which was seen a powerful factor in the creation of
youthful unrest and juvenile delinquency.
We walk north to the Euston Road - the site of the new British Library. It lies on the edge of Somers Town. In the 1800s this area contained some of the worst housing in the metropolis. Conditions were appalling in some courts, and overcrowding was rife. There have been various social and educational initiatives here including a model baths (1840) and the pioneering St Pancras School for Mothers (1907). The latter co-ordinated the notification of births, giving advice cards to mothers and health visiting, with various classes and talks - in cookery, the making of babies clothes and so on. They also established provident maternity clubs and held Fathers’ Evening Conferences. One of the first children’s play centres was opened by the London County Council following Mary Ward’s efforts.
Near to the station, on Churchway, we can find Grafton Buildings - for a time home to Josephine Macalister Brew. While living here she put together both In the Service of Youth and Informal Education: Adventures and reflections. See Josephine Macalister Brew, youth work and informal education.
Euston to Great Portland Street: Walk to the front of the station and the square bounded by office blocks.
Read about the YMCA huts.
Walk up to Euston Road - through the gardens in front of the station. Opposite is Friends Meeting House. It is directly opposite the main entrance to Euston Station.
Walk back onto Euston Road, turn left. Cross Gower Street. On your left is the Wellcome Institute (there is a further section on your right). The Institute is a major funder of medical and scientific research. A little further down to your right - just before Euston Square Underground Station is The National Council for Vocational Qualifications. This is the headquarters of the body promoting NVQs.
Walk on along Euston Road, cross North Gower Street and then cross Euston Road to the top of Tottenham Court Road (by Warren Street Underground Station). Walk down Warren Street. and then turn left onto Whitfield Street (named after George Whitefield who founded Whitefields Tabernacle in Tottenham Court Road in 1756).In Whitfield Street Place you will find a plaque on number 145 celebrating the first settlement of the Nepalese community in 1965. In the place is a play area.
Walk on down Whitfield Street, cross Grafton Way. On your left you will see Marie Stopes House.
Now walk east down Grafton Way towards Fitzroy Square. On your left will be the Indian YMCA.
Continue walking on past the London Foot Hospital and leave the Square by Grafton Way (on the opposite side of the Square by which you entered).
Turn right up (north) Cleveland Street. On your left at No 141 you will see The Clubhouse.
Walk on up Cleveland Street. Cleveland Street runs in parallel with Great Titchfield Street the site for Pethick and Neals co-operative experiment, Maison Espérance. It was also home, for a time, to the National Organization of Girls’ Clubs and the Honor Club (for Girls) (112). Turn left (west) at the top of Cleveland Street. Ahead you will see Great Portland Street Underground Station.
From here we can walk west to the sedate charms of Fitzrovia. On the way we would pass the National Council for Vocational Qualifications (and quickly!).
In Fitzrovia we first encounter a play area linked to the Fitzrovia Play Association (in Whitfield Street Place). Its future has been recently safeguarded following the council’s decision to close another area. There also used to be a play centre in the place.
Close by is The Marie Stopes Clinic (108 Whitfield Street, W1). From 1916 onwards, Marie Stopes (1880 - 1958) campaigned for a greater availability if contraception and information about sexual relationships. Her book Married Love (1916) caused a stir (it was banned in the USA). With her second husband, Humphrey Voe, she opened Britain’s first birth control clinic in 1921 (61 Marlborough Road, Holloway). The clinic moved to Whitfield Street in 1925. The headquarters of Marie Stopes International are on Cleveland Street.
In Fitzroy Square itself we can find the full range of informal education represented. In one corner we find the Indian YMCA. Originally on Gower Street (demolished for university buildings), this YMCA is run by the National Council of Indian YMCAs for Indian students. This building opened in 1953 (designed by Ralph Stubbs). Mahatma Gandhi (after whom one of the halls is named) was a visitor to the original YMCA in Gower Street to talk about independence with Indian students.
Residents in the rest of the square have included Ford Madox Brown, Lord Salisbury while Prime Minister, George Bernard Shaw and Virginia Wolfe. Other occupants have included the International School (libertarian), West Central Jewish Club, The Honor Club and St. Christopher's Boys' Club. The later was housed in what was reputed to be a former male brothel - and is now part of the London Foot Hospital.
On the square two boys clubs were next to each other Boys’
Club Work - St Christopher’s Boys’ Club
. St. Christopher's (on the left in the picture) was also the base for work
with young women by Mary Neal and Emmeline Pethick in the 1890s. Emily Pethick
went on to become the treasurer and key organizer with the Pankhursts of the
English Suffrage Union. Mary Ward became an important figure in the breathing of
new life into the English folk music and dance movement. See
Emmeline Pethick, Mary Neal and the development of work with young women.
The Square has also played host to a number of other educational initiatives - perhaps the most famous of which (at the time) was the school run by Louise Michel - probably the first libertarian school in Britain. Louise Michel and the International School.
While the Square is quiet for most of the time, it does host a community festival. This area has a strong tradition of community organizing, with one of the first community newspapers of the 1970s appearing here. Fitzrovia Community Festival and community action.
If we leave the Square by it's south western exit (Grafton Way) we come to Cleveland Street. This was the sight of further work by Pethick and Neal and today hosts an example of the Christian youth work that emerged in the 1950s. The Clubhouse and Christian youth work.
North of Bloomsbury we find Euston. During the First World War the station played host to an important social and adult informal education initiative: The YMCA Hut. The huts provided a place where members of the armed services could get a hot drink and food - and where they could find 'a touch of home'. Over 1500 were established - many in France close to the front lines. One of the key people involved in developing their educational programmes was Basil Yeaxlee, who was later to write the first book on lifelong education, and was involved in developing what was to become NIACE. See Euston and the YMCA hut.
Friends House, Euston Road NW1. Opened in 1927, this building houses the headquarters of the Religious Society of Friends. There is large meeting house plus a range of rooms which are used by various organisations - many of them educational (such as the YMCA George Williams College!) The building contains an extensive library of Quaker literature.
Euston to Mornington Crescent: Those wanting to stretch their legs can walk down through Somers Town to the Working Men’s College. The easiest way is to turn left down Chalton Street (just before the hospital) and follow it down to Crowndale Road. The College is on the corner of Camden Street.
Instead of heading for Fitzrovia after Euston we can head past Grafton Buildings for Somers Town. In the 1800s this area contained some of the worst housing in London. There were various social initiatives including a model baths (1840) and the pioneering St. Pancras School for Mothers (1907). Today Chalton Street hosts a number of youth organizations: New Horizons (no. 68), the British Youth Council and Somers Town Youth Centre. On the same road we can also find the Save the Children Fund Initiative: the Hopscotch Asian Women's Centre.
About halfway down Chalton Street we cross Polygon Road. This was the site of The Polygon - a fifteen sided building of 32 houses situated around a garden. William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft lived at No 29 for a time. Dickens lodged at No 17 some years later when the area was in decline (in 1828). The Polygon was demolished in 1890.
The
Working Men's College, 44 Crowndale Road, was founded in 1854 by Christian
Socialists committed to the furtherance of co-operative ideas, Christian
brotherhood and social justice. They sought to create a community of teachers
and students and placed an emphasis on humane studies and 'friends teaching
friends'. The Working Men's College.
To return to the walk frontpage: walking informal
education
Note: This page is part of our virtual walk around the history of informal education (in central London).
Walking for real: If you would like to do the informal education walk for real then why not join us on our next scheduled walk. It's free! Follow the link for joining details.
