St James's Square

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St James's Square is home to BP, the East India Club and the London Library - which was set up due to the founder's dissatisfaction with the British Library, and remains an independent organisation today. The architecture is predominantly Georgian and neo-Georgian, with Lutyens and John Soane both having designed buildings on the square.

St James Square was catapaulted into the limelight in 1984 with the Libyan Embassy Siege. Two students who had criticised the Libyan ruler, Colonel Gadaffi, had been executed in Tripoli, and a protest of Libyan dissidents formed outside the Libyan Embassy at 5 St James's Square. On the morning of 17 April 1984, shots were fired into the protestors. Eleven people were hit and WPC Yvonne Fletcher died. The embassy was then surrounded by armed police for eleven days. Eventually, the embassy staff were allowed to leave the building and were then deported. The UK then then broke off diplomatic relations with Libya. A Dispatches documentary, Murder at St James' suggests that in spite of Libya accepting broad responsibility for the shooting, and paying compensation to WPC Fletcher's family, the shots cannot have been fired from the Embassy itself.

In 2008, the square made headlines again. According to the Sunday Times, a flat at 8 St James's Square has become the most expensive home in the world, with a price understood to exceed £115m.