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BLOOMSBURY gets its name from its medieval landowners, the Blemunds, though nothing was built here until the 1660s. Through marriage, the Russell family (the earls and later dukes of Bedford) acquired much of the area, and established the many formal, bourgeois squares which are the main distinguishing feature of Bloomsbury today. The Russells named the grid-plan streets after their various titles and estates, and kept the pubs and shops to a minimum to maintain the tone of the neighbourhood. In the twentieth century, Bloomsbury acquired a reputation as the city's most learned quarter, dominated by the dual institutions of the British Museum and London University , and home to many of London's chief book publishers, but perhaps best known for its literary inhabitants. Today, the British Museum is clearly the star attraction, but temple and the law courts there are other sights, such as the Dickens House Museum , that are high on many people's itineraries. In its northern fringes, the character of the area changes dramatically, becoming steadily more seedy as you near the two big main-line train stations of Euston and King's Cross , where cheap B&Bs and run-down council estates provide fertile territory for prostitutes and drug dealers, and an unlikely location for the new British Library .
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