Qualla: Grosvenor Square https://qualla.com/grosvenor-square en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:14 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/grosvenor-square-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Grosvenor Square https://qualla.com/grosvenor-square Grosvenor Square: Introduction https://qualla.com/grosvenor-square/ Photo credit Peter Wetherell, CC BY 2.0. John Adams arrived at Grosvenor Square in 1785 and hated it. Not the square itself — that he appears to have admired — but the awkwardness of being the first American diplomatic representative to the Court of St. James's, presenting credentials to the king whose authority his country had just repudiated. He lived on the corner of Brook and Duke Streets, in a house that still stands, for three years. Over the next two centuries, the square would remain entangled with American ambition and British power in ways Adams could not have anticipated.

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Image: Peter Wetherell | CC BY 2.0

]]> Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/grosvenor-square-wp/gcpv-grosvenor-square-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Grosvenor Square: Built on Bankruptcy https://qualla.com/grosvenor-square/ Photo credit Ricardalovesmonuments, CC BY-SA 4.0. Sir Richard Grosvenor obtained a licence to develop Grosvenor Square and the surrounding streets in 1710, and construction ran from 1725 to 1731. The land was sold in individual plots to 30 different builders or partnerships. By 1738, roughly half of those builders had gone bankr...

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Image: Ricardalovesmonuments | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/grosvenor-square-wp/gcpv-grosvenor-square-built-on-bankruptcy.mp3 0:06 2 full Grosvenor Square: Eisenhower Platz https://qualla.com/grosvenor-square/ Photo credit No Swan So Fine, CC BY-SA 4.0. During the Second World War, American general Dwight D. Eisenhower established his military headquarters at 20 Grosvenor Square, and Londoners quickly nicknamed the area "Eisenhower Platz." A statue of Franklin D. Roosevelt, sculpted by Sir William Reid Dick, stands in the garden...

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Image: No Swan So Fine | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/grosvenor-square-wp/gcpv-grosvenor-square-eisenhower-platz.mp3 0:06 3 full Grosvenor Square: Protest and Memorial https://qualla.com/grosvenor-square/ Photo credit AndyScott, CC BY-SA 4.0. In March and October 1968, large demonstrations against US involvement in the Vietnam War filled Grosvenor Square. On both occasions the protests turned violent, with clashes between demonstrators and police outside the Saarinen embassy. The square became, for a time, a symbol of...

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Image: AndyScott | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/grosvenor-square-wp/gcpv-grosvenor-square-protest-and-memorial.mp3 0:06 4 full Grosvenor Square: Oscar Wilde's Square https://qualla.com/grosvenor-square/ Photo credit Spudgun67, CC BY-SA 4.0. Oscar Wilde lived in Grosvenor Square between 1883 and 1884, and he returned to it repeatedly in his work — it appears in An Ideal Husband, The Importance of Being Earnest, Lady Windermere's Fan, and The Picture of Dorian Gray. The Grateful Dead's Robert Hunter began "Scarlet Beg...

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Image: Spudgun67 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/grosvenor-square-wp/gcpv-grosvenor-square-oscar-wildes-square.mp3 0:06 5 full