Qualla: Soho Square https://qualla.com/soho-square en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:15 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/soho-square-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Soho Square https://qualla.com/soho-square Soho Square: Introduction https://qualla.com/soho-square/ Photo credit Stephen Richards, CC BY-SA 2.0. On the central lawn of Soho Square stands a tiny black-and-white half-timbered gardener's hut, built in 1926 to disguise an electricity substation. It looks like a market cross dropped in from a Cotswold village. A few yards away, a weathered statue of Charles II watches the office workers eat their lunches; the sculpture has stood here, with one long interruption, since 1681. On a bench at the western edge, fans of the singer Kirsty MacColl gather each October, near her birthday, to read aloud the lyrics inscribed on the brass plaque: "One day I'll be waiting there. No empty bench in Soho Square." Few squares in London are so small. Almost none carry as much in so little space.

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Image: Stephen Richards | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/soho-square-wp/gcpv-soho-square-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Soho Square: King's Square https://qualla.com/soho-square/ Photo credit Jack1956, CC0. The square was laid out in the late 1670s on what had been hunting ground for Henry VIII, and was first called King's Square in honour of the restored Charles II. The Danish sculptor Caius Gabriel Cibber carved a statue of the king while he was still on the throne, in 1681, and i...

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Image: Jack1956 | CC0

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/soho-square-wp/gcpv-soho-square-kings-square.mp3 0:06 2 full Soho Square: Joseph Banks's Scientific Salon https://qualla.com/soho-square/ Photo credit Spudgun67, CC BY-SA 4.0. In the 1770s the naturalist Joseph Banks, who had circumnavigated the globe with James Cook on the Endeavour, moved into number 32 on the south-west corner. He was elected president of the Royal Society in 1778. His house quickly became one of the most important scientific gather...

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Image: Spudgun67 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/soho-square-wp/gcpv-soho-square-joseph-bankss-scientific-salon.mp3 0:06 3 full Soho Square: Animation Drawn in Soho https://qualla.com/soho-square/ Photo credit Public domain. From 1955 to 1993, number 13 Soho Square housed Richard Williams Animation. Williams, a Canadian-born perfectionist, made television commercials and title sequences from this address while spending decades on a feature that became the never-finished The Thief and the Cobbler. His...

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Image: Public domain

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/soho-square-wp/gcpv-soho-square-animation-drawn-in-soho.mp3 0:06 4 full Soho Square: The Two Churches and the House https://qualla.com/soho-square/ Photo credit Freepenguin, CC BY-SA 3.0. The square has three quiet, dignified buildings that remember other Sohos. On the east side stands St Patrick's Catholic Church, built in 1792 for the area's poor Irish immigrants, descendants of the families who had crossed the sea in the wake of the Williamite wars and the slow...

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Image: Freepenguin | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/soho-square-wp/gcpv-soho-square-the-two-churches-and-the-house.mp3 0:06 5 full Soho Square: A Bench for Kirsty https://qualla.com/soho-square/ Photo credit Deceased relative of Infrogmation. Please credit "Family photos of Infrogmation"., CC BY-SA 4.0. The square's most quietly visited memorial honours the singer Kirsty MacColl, who wrote the song Soho Square for her 1993 album Titanic Days. She was killed in a boating accident in Mexico on 18 December 2000, at the age of 41. Her fans bought a bench in the garden and inscribed ...

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Image: Deceased relative of Infrogmation. Please credit "Family photos of Infrogmation". | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/soho-square-wp/gcpv-soho-square-a-bench-for-kirsty.mp3 0:06 6 full