Bedford Square is a modern civic square in Belfast city centre, located off Bedford Street and Franklin Street, within the historic Linen Quarter area. It was created in the early twenty-first century as part of a major redevelopment scheme centred on the listed Ewart Building.
The square did not exist as a named or defined space in the nineteenth century. Instead, it was formed through redevelopment of land bounded by Bedford Street, Franklin Street, McClintock Street and adjoining sites, as part of the Bedford Square Development. Planning documentation from 2016 describes the completion of a new civic square providing a courtyard space between the refurbished Ewart Building, a new office tower and the existing INI Building.
The name Bedford Square is therefore a contemporary place-name, derived from its proximity to Bedford Street rather than from an earlier historic square. Its creation reflects modern urban design priorities, introducing public space into a dense commercial district that developed during the nineteenth century as a centre for the linen trade.
Although newly created, Bedford Square sits within a historic streetscape and forms part of the continuing evolution of Belfast city centre, linking nineteenth-century commercial architecture with twenty-first-century redevelopment.
Sources
Belfast City Council, Development Management Officer Report, Committee Application LA04/2015/0264/F (26 July 2016)
Planning application records relating to the Bedford Square Development
Patton, M., Central Belfast: A Historical Gazetteer