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Portman Square
Portman Square is one of the principal garden squares of west Marylebone, situated within the W1H postcode and forming a centrepiece of the Portman Estate. The square was developed between 1765 and 1784 on land owned by Henry William Portman, whose family had held 11 fields in this part of Marylebone since 1532, making the Portman Estate one of the oldest private landholdings in London.
The architectural highlight of the square is Home House at No. 20, a Georgian townhouse commissioned for the Countess of Home and completed in 1777 to designs by Robert Adam. It is one of Adam's finest surviving interiors in London and today operates as a private members' club. The square's Georgian terraces established it as one of the most sought-after residential addresses of the late 18th century, alongside Oxford Street addresses and the streets of the neighbouring Howard de Walden Estate to the east.
Over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, many of the original townhouses were converted to commercial and hotel use, a pattern common across the grander Marylebone squares. The central garden remains private. The Portman Estate continues to manage the surrounding streets, including Portman Street, which connects the square southward to Oxford Street. The square's name is preserved across the immediate neighbourhood in Portman Street, Portman Close and the estate's own trading identity.
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