Bloomsbury & the centre

Bloomsbury is London's Latin Quarter by design: when the universities needed room in the nineteenth century, the Duke of Bedford's fields were the cheapest land nearest the British Museum. UCL arrived in 1826; Birkbeck followed with evening lectures; the law schools walked down from the Inns of Court; and by 1900 the district between Euston Road and the river held more professors per square mile than any place on earth.

Seventeen of this guide's houses stand within the sweep of the Circle Line — from King's on the Strand to the Courtauld at Somerset House, from LSE's compact block to the Royal Academy of Music beside Regent's Park. The West End contributes the conservatoires of drama; the City contributes Guildhall.

The student experience here is the London of literature: squares, queues at the Warburg, second-hand bookshops, and a library card that feels like citizenship.