 Russian revolutionary Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin) visited, around 1905, his friend Theodore Rothstein who resided in the square.The east side of the square was destroyed in the London Blitz of World War II and rebuilt, to emulate as it was, at the start of the next century.North-east of the square is Holly Villas in Clapton Passage, a short terrace of multi-storey bay-windowed Victorian villas built in 1882.