Four Georgian terraces of yellow stock brick face a private oval garden.
What Bedford Square looks like
Four terraces face , an oval of lawn and trees inside iron railings. The gates open under wrought iron arches, and mature trees along the railings close in the view from the pavement. The garden is private. It opens to visitors during the Open Garden Squares Weekend in June. Traffic runs along Gower Street, beside the square.
Each terrace is three storeys over a basement and an attic, with mansard roofs behind a continuous parapet. The fronts are yellow stock brick with tuck pointing, and several terraces are now dark brown. The centre house of each terrace is stuccoed, with a pediment and a rusticated base. First-floor windows have wrought-iron balconies.
Doorways have Coade stone surrounds, and each keystone is carved with a human face. at No. 13 has a fanlight, a black front door and carved stone blocks around its arch. On , the west face of 40 Bedford Square is plainer, with sash windows and several bricked-up openings.
Most of the houses are now offices, and a few have gone back to single-family use. The mews on Bedford Avenue, south of the square, are two storeys over a basement. The terraces are close to intact, and the houses carry Grade I listing.
Shot in Bedford Square
Doctor Who filmed the square on 22 May 1966 for The War Machines, with the TARDIS materialising in it. The 2014 film Belle used the exterior of a house on the square to stand in for Lord Mansfield's London house on Bloomsbury Square, combining two houses by turning one front door into a window. The 1987 film Maurice has James Wilby and Rupert Graves outside 12-13 Bedford Square. In The Silkworm, Part 2 of the Strike series, Robin apprehends a suspect in Bedford Square. No house is named. The 2010 series of The Apprentice used No. 52 as the contestants' house.
Doctor Who, The War Machines, 1966
Bedford Square
The War Machines, a 1966 Doctor Who serial, was filmed here on 22 May 1966. The TARDIS materialises in the square, and the Doctor reaches the Royal Scientific Club at No. 41.
What Bedford Square can double for
Fitzwilliam Square in Dublin, Ireland
Fitzwilliam Square in Dublin is a Georgian garden square whose central park is open only to keyholders, mostly the residents of the 69 houses around it. Its terraces are Georgian, as Bedford Square's are. A locked park gate shows in close frames, so shoot the houses from the pavement rather than the park. Try searching Dublin Georgian garden square now.
The Circus is a Georgian circle of large townhouses with three entrances, built between 1754 and 1768 to a design by John Wood the Elder. Its curve is what separates it from Bedford Square's straight terraces, so the match holds only in a tight frame. The ring's curve gives it away in any wide shot, so frame a single segment. Try searching Georgian ring of townhouses now.
