Argyle Square is one of the streets of the Battle Bridge Estate.
Argyle Square is situated between St. Chad’s Street (formerly Derby Street) and Argyle Street (formerly Manchester Street) which bounds the estate on the south.
The Battle Bridge field originally laid both sides of Gray’s Inn Road, sharing its name with the name usually applied to this part of London prior to the erection here of the memorial to King George IV in 1830, when the area became known as King’s Cross.
The development of the New Road (Euston Road) in the middle of the eighteenth century cut across the 18-acre part of the field west of Gray’s Inn Road, leaving most of it south of the new road.
This field was owned by a William Brock in 1800 and continued to be used for gardens and meadows.
In the early 1820s, when a remaining 16½ acres was purchased by Thomas Dunstan, William Robinson, and William Flanders. 15¼ acres were south of Euston Road and the remainder on the north side was eventually sold to become St Pancras station. An Act of Parliament was obtained in 1824 to develop the land - at the same time the neighbouring Skinners’, Cromer, and Harrison estates were being developed.
Development was delayed in part by the failure of the Panarmion scheme - a large entertainment complex with a theatre, galleries, and reading rooms as well as gardens and pleasure grounds which opened in 1830 but had failed by 1832 and was then demolished.
Argyle Square - also known as Argyll Square - was laid out in 1832. The first houses appeared by 1840 and it was fully built by 1849. It may have been named after the Dukes of Argyll or Argyle, along with the other streets nearby which share this name.
In the middle of the nineteenth century, it was a respectable place to live - the New Jerusalem Church (Swedenborgian) was opened in 1844.
The main part of the Battle Bridge Estate comprised Liverpool Street, Manchester Street, Derby Street, and Belgrave Street. The whole area was subsequenly reported to be overcrowded and squalid in 1848, especially so after King’s Cross and St Pancras were built.
The Square was bombed during the Second World War, The New Jerusalem church was damaged and later demolished
