Sloane Square

Story

Sloane Square is a small hard-landscaped square on the boundaries of the central London districts of Knightsbridge, Belgravia and Chelsea, located 2.1mi southwest of Charing Cross, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. The area forms a boundary between the two largest aristocratic estates in London, the Grosvenor Estate and the Cadogan. The square was formerly known as 'Hans Town', laid out in 1771 to a plan of by Henry Holland Snr. and Henry Holland Jnr. Both the square and Hans Town were named after Sir Hans Sloane (1660–1753), whose estates owned the land at the time.LocationThe square lies at the east end of Kings Road and at the south end of the more conventionally smart Sloane Street linking to Knightsbridge. In the early 1980s, it lent its name to the "Sloane Rangers", the young underemployed, often snooty and ostentatiously well-off members of the upper classes. On the northern side of the square is the Sloane Square Hotel.HistoryThe square has two notable buildings. Peter Jones department store designed by Reginald Uren of the firm Slater Moberly and Uren in 1936 and now a Grade II* listed building on account of its early curtain wall and modernist aesthetic, pioneering in the UK for a department store. The building was carefully restored 2003-2007 with internal upgrading in line with the original designs by John McAslan and Partners. This included making the three storey atrium full-height. Peter Jones now operates as part of the employee-owned John Lewis chain.