Lenin's London House on Percy Circus and the Fate of Its Memorial Plaque

​​In 1841-53 London's Percy Circus was laid out on the circus plan: 27 curved houses were built wall to wall around the square. The residential complex was conceived as good property for the lower stratum of the middle class, and local history records show that it housed the owners of shoe manufactories and fashion shops, respectable widows, retired officers and booksellers. But the most famous resident was, beyond question, Vladimir Lenin. The Victorian rented house at number 16, where Lenin lived, survived the Second World War despite intensive bombing, but was pulled down in 1968-69. The solicitous Londoners, however, kept the commemorative plaque, originally put up on the house in 1962, which states that in 1905 the founder of the USSR, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, lived here at number 16. One of the conditions laid upon the new developer was the restoration of this plaque, and it was returned to the wall of the new building in 1972. The sign adorns the house to this day and is a local landmark.