London area of Bloomsbury guide

What to do and where to stay in London's Bloomsbury neighbourhood

The cool white garden squares and wide streets of Bloomsbury have been a pull to thinkers for centuries, and it sometimes seems like every second house has a blue plaque denoting that a great writer, scientist or philosopher once inhabited the building. It was in Bloomsbury that Karl Marx created communism, Virginia Woolf defined the twentieth century British novel, and Charles Darwin first conceived the theory of natural selection. The imposing bulk of the British Museum, home to seven millennia of human art and artefacts, dominates the area, and there are plenty of other academic institutions including Birkbeck College, the beautiful University of London Library, and RADA, London's grandest drama school. There are a number of hotels just a stone's throw from the British Museum, which offer peaceful surroundings and easy access to the West End.

See our recommended nearby Bloomsbury Hotels, Entertainment, Sights and Attractions, Shopping, Restaurants, Pubs, Nightlife, Leisure, Education, and Meeting Venues.