Soho Square
[a][1] At its centre is a listed mock "market cross" building, completed in 1926 to hide the above-ground features of a contemporary electricity substation; small, octagonal, with Tudorbethan timber framing.
A legacy of creative design and philanthropic occupants lingers including the British Board of Film Classification, 20th Century Studios UK, Dolby Europe Ltd, Tiger Aspect Productions, Saint Patrick's Catholic Church which provides many social outreach projects to local homeless and addicts, the French Protestant Church of London (by architect Aston Webb) and the House of St Barnabas, a members' club since 2013, which fundraises and hosts events and exhibitions for homelessness-linked good causes.
The statue of Charles II was carved by Danish sculptor Caius Gabriel Cibber during the King's reign in 1681 and made the centrepiece of the square; since it has returned it has not been in the centre.
[2] The development lease to convert the immediately surrounding fields, for 53+1⁄4 years, was granted in 1677 to Richard Frith, citizen (elector of the Corporation of London) and bricklayer.
[3] By the early 19th century, the statue, fountain and attendant figures was described as "in a most wretched mutilated state; and the inscriptions on the base of the pedestal quite illegible".
20-21 Soho Square from the late 1830s until the early 1920s), who gave it for safekeeping to his friend, artist Frederick Goodall, with the intention that it might be restored.
In 1778, Banks was elected president of the Royal Society and his home became a kind of scientific salon hosting scientists visiting from around the world.
[6] Eleven artists whose addresses are given as being in Soho Square in exhibition catalogues, whose names do not appear in the vestry ratebooks, are listed by the 1966 Survey of London by historian F H W Sheppard.
New iron railings and gates were provided in 1959 by the Soho Square Garden Committee with the assistance of Westminster City Council.
22 became home to British Movietone[10] and Kay (West End) Film Laboratories,[11] having been re-built to its current form between 1913 and 1914.
The composer Benjamin Frankel lived at 17 Soho Square between 1953 and 1957, where he often hosted a circle of artists including the poet Cecil Day Lewis, film director Anthony Asquith, and the writer Leonard Woolf.
[14] Soho Square is home to several media organisations, including the British Board of Film Classification, 20th Century Fox, Bare Escentuals, Deluxe Entertainment Services Group, Dolby Europe Ltd, Fin London, Paul McCartney's MPL Communications, Tiger Aspect Productions, Wasserman Media Group and See Tickets.
On the east side the Roman Catholic parish church is partially on the site of Carlisle House with catacombs that spread deep under the square and further.
[15][16] In the book A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, Soho Square is where Lucie and her father, Doctor Manette, reside.
Joseph Addison and Richard Steele wrote of their character Sir Roger de Coverley in The Spectator, "When he is in Town he lives in Soho-Square."
Fans of Kirsty gather at the bench each year on the Sunday closest to her birthday (10 October) to mark her life, music and legacy.
