Bedford Square

Georgian squares were built in London from the last quarter of the eighteenth century. In each instance, there was a regular design for the elevations facing the square, but interiors were individually developed. Unlike domestic urban planning on the continent, the English town house was organized vertically. Louis Simond, a Frenchman writing in 1817, gives this description: "These narrow houses, three or four stories high-one for eating, one for sleeping, a third for company, a fourth underground for the kitchens, a fifth perhaps at the top for servants-and the agility, the ease, the quickness with which the individuals of the family run up and down and perch on the different stories, give the idea of a cage with its sticks and birds." All in all, the Georgian house was simple, economical, and perfectly adapted to the social pattern of its owners, and to that of a greater civic whole.