Covent Garden - "Oh yes he did, oh no he didn't"

Location

• Covent Garden is located on the easternmost part of the City of Westminster. Today the area is dominated by chic shops, street performers and entertainment facilities that include the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, theatres and night clubs.
• This area, bounded by Holborn to the north, Kingsway to the east, the Strand to the south and Charing Cross Road to the west, with the Piazza located in the geographical centre of the area, which from the 1500s until 1974 it was the site of a flower, fruit and vegetable market.

Historical facts

• A fruit & vegetable market was set up by monks from St Peters (Westminster Abbey) who used this area as the ‘convent garden’ – a chapel was built half way between these gardens and St Peters, which became St Martin’s in the Fields
• After the reformation, when King Henry VIII sold off religious lands to his friends, this area was purchased by the wealthy Duke of Bedford (the Russell family), who built Bedford House and allowed fruit and vegetables to be sold from his garden
• Above the main arch approach to the market square, facing James Street are the Russell Family’s coat of arms motto in the portico ‘che sara sara’ (whatever will be, will be)
• The first Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, was built by Sir Christopher Wren
• Ladies theatre audiences would press nosegays (small bunches of flowers bought from flower girls) to mask the stench of body odour – at a time when water was too expensive to be used for washing, others sniffed oranges which could also be used to throw at the actors if they became boring
• Residents kept hedgehogs to eat the beetles attracted by the market waste
• Home of the Royal Opera House
• Bow Street runners – the world’s first police force
• By the end of the 1960s, with the introduction of juggernaut lorries, roads servicing the market were almost at gridlock and the area was threatened with complete redevelopment. But following a public outcry in 1973, the Home Secretary awarded buildings around the square ‘listed status’ which prevented demolition and the following year the market moved to a purpose built site in Nine Elms.
• The complete Covent Garden estate is owned by Capital & Counties, and consists of 550,000 sq ft with a current market value in the region of £650m.

Shopping

• The square re-opened as a shopping centre and tourist attraction in 1980 and today the shops largely sell novelty items, though street performers can be seen almost every day of the year on the pitches within the market and on the West & East Piazza’s/James Street outside. More serious shoppers gravitate to Long Acre, which has a range of clothes shops and boutiques, or Neal Street which is noted for its large number of shoe shops. London’s Transport Museum in the old Foreign Flower Market building, the side entrance to the Royal Opera House box office and other facilities are also located on the Piazza amongst its many restaurants.

Street entertainment

• Street entertainment at Covent Garden was first mentioned in Samuel Pepys’ diary in 1662, when he saw the first English performance of the Punch & Judy puppet show outside St Paul’s church.
• Today Covent Garden is the only part of London licensed for street entertainment, with performers having to undertake auditions. Currently performers operate from 10:30am to 7:00pm in a number of venues around the market – the inner courtyard space is dedicated to classical music only.

Famous residents

• Amanda Barry
• David Garrick
• Dr Thomas Arne (wrote Rule Britannia)
• Eddie Lizzard
• Ellen Terry
• Henry Fielding
• John Dryden
• John Mortimer
• Joseph Mallard William Turner
• Peter Stringfellow
• Richard Brinsley Sheridan
• Thomas Chippendale
• Vesta Tilley
• Virginia Woolf