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Camden New Journal - by DAN CARRIER
Published: 17 May 2007

Restoration gets royal approval

HISTORIC Bloomsbury squares that were no-go zones because of drug addicts were re-opened by Her Royal Highness Princess Anne this week after a £1.5m restoration project.
Woburn and Gordon Squares, owned by the University College London, were given the make- over by the university with the help of experts from English Heritage who embarked on a seven-year investigation to find out how they originally looked.
Project manager Drew Bennillick, a landscape architect with English Heritage, said the squares were important examples of Georgian London – and would be a valuable asset for the area.
But to restore Gordon and Woburn back to their former glory required careful detective work.
Mr Bennillick scoured archives at the British Library, the Metropolitan archives and old prints to build up a picture of what they would have looked like 300 years ago when architect Thomas Cubitt first laid them out.
The original iron fencing had been torn up during the Second World War for scrap metal, and the replacement chain link fence not only looked ugly but meant the squares where not secure.
Mr Bennillick said: “It allowed drug users to come in, scaring away the public.”
A stone plinth was discovered in a flower bed and this gave builders a clue to the masonry the railings sat on. The railings then where copied from homes around the square.
The cash for the restoration came from the university, the Heritage Lottery fund, charitable trust the Wolfson Foundation and English Heritage.
Pictured page one: Princess Anne with the unversity’s estate’s surveyor, Suzanne Spooner and Mayor Dawn Somper.

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