The People’s Piazza

St Mary le Strand - Westminster - London - 2023 - Agnese Sanvito for SAVE — Pedestrians stroll where once lorries and buses dominated

Reclaiming London’s historic Strand for public use

A decade ago, SAVE Britain's Heritage launched a bold campaign that would change the face of one of London's most iconic streets forever.

The Strand – part of a major thoroughfare linking Trafalgar Square to St Paul’s Cathedral – was a notoriously congested four-lane highway that left the grade I-listed Baroque church St Mary-le-Strand marooned on a traffic island.

In 2015, King’s College sparked public outrage when it announced plans to demolish a row of distinctive historic buildings adjacent to Somerset House – known as the “little houses on the Strand” – to make way for a new academic building. The plan was to demolish numbers 154-158 completely, leaving only the grade II-listed façade of numbers 152-3. The variety and rhythm of the historic facades would be replaced by a single, seven-storey monolithic structure.

Bus drivers used to call St Mary-le-Strand church ‘St Mary’s in the Way’. Now it's become the centrepiece of a new piazza at the heart of London

CANON PETER BABINGTON, priest-in-charge, St Mary-le-Strand

When news of the demolition was announced, SAVE acted immediately

What SAVE did:

We launched a 10,000-strong petition (our fastest-growing petition ever) that reversed Historic England’s stance and triggered a public inquiry. This resulted in King’s College voluntarily withdrawing its plans for demolition.
We generated a vast amount of media attention, including a series of letters in The Times from celebrities like Michael Palin and Ptolemy Dean.
We published a groundbreaking report, SAVE our Strand, which showed how the buildings could be retained and repurposed with an alternative scheme, and proposed a new pedestrianised piazza between the houses and church – an idea that we worked on with John Burrell of BFF Architects. This concept was later adopted by Westminster City Council.

Strand - Westminster - London - c2015 - John Burrell - traffic

L-R: Four lanes of heavy traffic surrounded St Mary-le-Strand church for years. Before: On the left, the 'little houses' stand empty and threatened behind the wall of buses. Now: A landscaped piazza and garden have replaced the congested highway - and a great opportunity for the 'little houses'

Little Houses on the Strand - Westminster - London - 2015 - John Burrell - 152-158 restored

Left: Illustration from SAVE's 2015 alternative vision for a pedestrianised piazza on the Strand with the 'little houses' brought back into use as an attractive part of the King's College campus. Right: The road has now been pedestrianised, creating London's largest new public space for a decade

Not only did our campaign lead to King’s College backing down from its demolition plans, but the council went on to transform the Strand into a pedestrianised piazza filled with plants and public art. In 2023, a stunning new 7,000 sq m public space opened that reconnects St Mary-le-Strand with the rest of the street and creates a new opportunity for the “little houses on the Strand” to be brought back to life. This has already resulted in a significant increase in visitors to the church and pedestrians can enjoy strolling between it and Somerset House for the first time in decades. Work is now underway to restore the church and the facades of 152-158 The Strand.

This incredible transformation would never have been achieved without the huge public support we received throughout SAVE’s campaign.