Louis Rules Britannia Square

View Larger Map

Composing red top headlines over breakfast is more rewarding than reading most of the British press. This Google image of Saint Oswald's Lodge is something of an experiment so if you cannot see a photograph of a spaciously proportioned Regency building please let me know.

I don't know to what extent Louis interested himself in the architecture and construction of his houses in Britannia Square; his experience with a trowel may have been limited to the local lodge. Many of the d'Egvilles were Freemasons and I will be exploring this in greater detail because some wonderful resources are available to the researcher.

Louis was certainly one of the developers of this calm and relatively untouched area of Worcester. He is even mentioned in Worcester City Council's 2010 conservation document,

Key early developers of the plots were William Handy, Nicholas Willoughby, and Louis Harvey d’Egville. Handy acquired a large share of the Pound Farm, including the Second Pound Field (later to become Britannia Square to Back Lane North). Louis Harvey d’Egville acquired a plot from William Handy in 1818, almost certainly on the east side, and he also developed some of the houses on the south side. D’Egville borrowed money against ‘a capital messuage or mansion house with garden and pleasure ground and barns’ in 1823; this was St Oswald’s Lodge (no.53).

This document has no more information about Louis but is well worth reading because it conveys the importance of the Square to our national heritage.Even the oak tree in the front garden of Saint Oswald's is considered to be an important part of this landscape that must be conserved.