Greenwell Street

On the south side is the grade II listed George and Dragon public house (c.1850) and the site of the home of the sculptor John Flaxman, the location of which is marked by a plaque.

The plasterer and scagliola manufacturer Vincent Bellman and his successors in trade had their business at number 14 from 1832 until 1877 where at one stage they employed 68 men and boys.

The street was badly damaged by German bombing during the Second World War and has been subject to redevelopment in the post-war period so that, apart from the pub, all of its buildings are of modern construction.

John Flaxman had his studio at the house and his assistants would create his sculptures in the yard at the back using scale models that he made.

[1] The chemist and physiologist William Hyde Wollaston also found his back garden useful when he lived at number 14 from 1801, building a laboratory there in which he invented a method of rendering platinum metal malleable, which was said to have earned him £30,000.

[1] In 1908, an Out-Patients Department and Nurses' Home was built on the corner of Bolsover and Greenwell streets for the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital.

[8] This last features, on the Greenwell side, relief sculptures of a boy holding a cricket bat and a girl with flowers which were salvaged from above the main entrance in Bolsover Street when the original hospital was demolished in 2007-08.