84. Brunswick Square Plane

For the second week in a row, I feature a London plane. This one is a magnificent Georgian tree in a central London square.

Dec 23, 2023

London planes add grandeur to avenues and public spaces, and are usually managed over many years to ensure they pose no obstacle to traffic or pedestrians. But the tree in Brunswick Square has been left to its own devices. It is vast, dating back to the Square’s construction over 200 years ago, and has branches that reach to the ground, enclosing a sanctuary within.

Brunswick Square is at the heart of Bloomsbury, and the tree in its centre could be described as a landmark within a landmark. Today, the elegant townhouses that once lined the Square are long gone, so it is the plane tree that provides consistency. It is possible to imagine famous residents of yesteryear passing under its massive boughs. In the early twentieth century, Bloomsbury Group members Virginia Woolf, Duncan Grant, Adrian Stephen, Leonard Woolf and John Maynard Keynes lived at 38 Brunswick Square, while the Square is mentioned in Jane Austen’s Emma from 1815. Austen may have visited in the years before, and so it is possible to think she too may have known the plane as a sapling.