Lowndes Square Gardens

Lowndes Square Gardens sits at the center of a grand residential development that transformed what were once muddy, open fields into one of the most exclusive addresses in London. The square was laid out in the eighteen twenties and thirties, a project spearheaded by the prolific master builder Thomas Cubitt, who was instrumental in shaping the elegant, white-stuccoed face of nineteenth-century Belgravia. While many of the surrounding terraces were designed by architect George Basevi to create a uniform, aristocratic aesthetic, the square itself serves as the private, green heart of this highly restricted neighborhood. Its name honors William Lowndes, a powerful politician and landowner who held vast tracts of property here during the eighteenth century, long before the modern streetscape was imagined.