Covent Garden ( ) is a
district in London
, England
, located in
the easternmost parts of the City of Westminster
and the southwestern corner of the London Borough
of Camden
. The area is dominated by shopping, street performers, and entertainment
facilities, and it contains an entrance to the Royal Opera
House
, which is also widely-known simply as "Covent
Garden", and the bustling Seven Dials
area.
The area
is bounded by High
Holborn
to the north, Kingsway
to the east,
the
Strand
to the south and Charing Cross Road
to the west. Covent Garden Piazza is
located in the geographical centre of the area and was the site of
a flower, fruit and vegetable market from the 1500s until 1974,
when the wholesale market relocated to New Covent
Garden Market
in Nine Elms.
Nearby
areas include Soho
, St
James's
, Bloomsbury
, and Holborn
.
History
Roman times to the 1500s
A
settlement has existed in the area since the Roman times as an outlier settlement near
Londinium
, the most detailed evidence coming from the area
near St Martin's
in the Fields
, where high status Romano-British burials were uncovered in
2004. After the collapse of the Roman Empire in Britain the
area was deserted, but with the arrival of the
Anglo-Saxon settlements this area became
Lundenwic the principal early medieval
township. The Anglo-Saxons largely ignored the intramural area of
Londinium, as they had most Roman cities.
Alfred the Great abandoned the area, from
at least
886, when he occupied Londinium as
Lundenburh as part of his reconquest of
the Viking occupation.
This explains why part of the area is named
Aldwych
ie 'old
town'. There are extensive early-medieval archaeological
remains in the Covent Garden area reflecting this settlement and
abandonment period and process.
"Covent
Garden" (covent being the Middle English form of the
modern word convent) was the name given, during the reign
of King John (1199–1216), to a patch
in the county of Middlesex
, bordered west and east by what is now St. Martin's
Lane
and Drury
Lane
, and north and south by Floral Street and a line
drawn from Chandos Place, along Maiden Lane and Exeter Street to
the Aldwych.In
this quadrangle the Abbey or Convent of St. Peter, Westminster,
maintained a large kitchen garden throughout the Middle Ages to
provide its daily food. Over the next three centuries, the monks'
old "convent garden" became a major source of fruit and vegetables
in London and was managed by a succession of leaseholders by grant
from the Abbot of Westminster.
This type of lease eventually led to property disputes throughout
the kingdom, which
Henry VIII
solved in 1540 by the stroke of a pen when he
dissolved the monasteries and
appropriated their land.
King Henry VIII granted part of the land to
Baron Russell,
Lord High Admiral and, later,
Earl of Bedford.
In fulfilment of his
father's dying wish, King Edward
VI bestowed the remainder of the convent garden in 1547 to his
maternal uncle, Edward Seymour, the Duke of
Somerset who began building Somerset House
on the south side of Strand the next
year. When Seymour was
beheaded for
treason in 1552, the land once again came
into royal gift, and was awarded four months later to one of those
who had contributed to Seymour's downfall. Forty acres
(16 ha), known as "le Covent Garden" plus "the long acre",
were granted by royal
patent in
perpetuity to the Earl of Bedford.
1600s to 1800s
The modern-day Covent Garden has its roots in the early 17th
century when land ("the Convent's Garden") was redeveloped by
Francis Russell,
4th Earl of Bedford. The area was designed by
Inigo Jones, the first and greatest of English
Renaissance architects.
He was inspired by late 15th century and
early 16th century planned market towns known as bastides (themselves modelled on Roman colonial
towns by way of nearby monasteries) and the Place des
Vosges
the first planned square in Paris. The
centrepiece of the project was an arcaded piazza.
The church of
St Paul's,
Covent Garden
stood at the centre of the western side of the
piazza. A market, which was originally open air, occupied
the centre of the piazza.
The area rapidly became a base for market traders, an area to which
foreign travelers resorted. Exotic items from around the world were
carried on boats up the
River Thames
and sold on from Covent Garden. The first mention of a
Punch and Judy show in Britain was recorded
by diarist
Samuel Pepys, who saw such a
show in the square in May 1662.
Following the Great Fire
of London
of 1666 which destroyed rival markets towards the
east of the city, the market became the most important in the
country. Today Covent Garden is the only part of London
licensed for street entertainment, with performers having to
undertake auditions for the Market's management and representatives
of the performers' union and signing up to timetabled slots.
In 1830 a
grand building reminiscent of the Roman
baths such as those found in Bath
was built to
provide a more permanent trading centre.
On 7 April 1779, the pavement outside the Covent Garden playhouse
was the scene of the notorious murder of
Martha Ray, mistress of the
Earl of Sandwich, by her
admirer the Rev.
James Hackman, who
was hanged twelve days later.
Covent Garden was a well-known red-light district in the 18th
century. The activities in Covent Garden were documented in
Harris's List
of Covent Garden Ladies, a titillating list providing the
addresses of prostitutes and whore houses, as well as details of
their “specialities”. During its heyday (1757 to 1795),
Harris’s List was the "essential guide and accessory for
any serious gentleman of pleasure".
Modern-day period
The exterior of Covent Garden
market
The interior of Covent Garden
Market
Street view down to Covent Garden
Market
Covent Garden Market with Christmas
lights at night
In 1913, responding to political feeling against large holdings of
real property, and wishing to diversify his investment portfolio
into less politically sensitive fields, the Duke of Bedford agreed
to sell the Covent Garden Estate to the MP and land speculator
Harry Mallaby-Deeley for £2
million. The following year Mallaby-Deeley sold his option to buy
to the
pill
manufacturer
Sir Joseph Beecham
for £250,000. After delays caused by the First World War and the
death of Sir Joseph, the sale was finalised in 1918, the purchasers
being Sir Joseph's two sons,
Sir
Thomas and
Henry. The transaction
included the market, 231 other properties, and sundry other rights.
The property was part of Beecham Estates and Pills Limited from
1924 to 1928 and from 1928 it was owned by a successor company
called Covent Garden Properties Company Limited, owned by the
Beechams and other private investors. This new company sold some
properties at Covent Garden, while becoming active in property
investment in other parts of London. In 1962 the bulk of the
remaining properties in the Covent Garden area, including the
market, were sold to the newly established government-owned Covent
Garden Authority for £3,925,000.
By the end of the 1960s,
traffic
congestion in the surrounding area had reached such a level
that the use of the square as a market, which required increasingly
large
lorries for deliveries and distribution,
was becoming unsustainable. The whole area was threatened with
complete redevelopment. Following a public outcry, in 1973 the
Home Secretary,
Robert Carr, gave dozens of buildings around the
square
listed building status,
preventing redevelopment.
The following year the market finally moved
to a new site (called the New Covent Garden Market) about three miles (5 km) south-west at
Nine Elms. The square languished
until its central building re-opened as a shopping centre and
tourist attraction in 1980. Today the shops largely sell novelty
items, though street performers can be seen almost every day of the
year, both on the pitches within the market, and on the West and
East Piazza's/James Street outside. More serious shoppers gravitate
to Long Acre, which has a range of clothes shops and boutiques, and
Neal Street, noted for its large number
of shoe shops.
London's Transport Museum
and the side entrance to the Royal Opera
House box office and other facilities are also located on
the Piazza.
In August 2007, Covent Garden launched the UK's first food Night
Market. Fresh produce from over 35 different stalls included Neal's
Yard's specialist cheeses, Spore Boys' mushroom sandwiches, Gourmet
Candy Company, Ginger Pig sausages and Burnt Sugar fudge. The aim
of the Night Market was to bring Covent Garden back to its roots as
the "Larder of London". Organisers are hoping to make it a
permanent event in 2008 as part of a wider initiative to regenerate
interest in the Covent Garden area.
Covent Garden Market and Piazza was bought by
Capital and Counties in August 2006 for
£421 million. In March 2007 Capco also acquired the shops located
under the Royal Opera House.The complete Covent Garden Estate owned
by
Capital and Counties
consists of . and has a market value of £650 million.
Covent Garden Market reopened as a retail centre in 1980, after the
produce market was moved to its current location in
Nine Elms. Currently one of the most famous and
popular parts of the covered Covent Garden market is Apple Market,
a small subsection of the main market. Street entertainment at
Covent Garden was first mentioned in
Samuel
Pepys' diary in 1662.Today Covent Garden is the only part of
London licensed for street entertainment with performers having to
undertake auditions for the Market's management and representatives
of the performers' union and signing up to timetabled slots.
Currently performers operate in a number of venues around the
market, including the North Hall, West Piazza, and South Hall
Courtyard. The courtyard space is dedicated to
classical music only. There are street
performances at Covent Garden Market every day of the year, except
Christmas Day. Shows run throughout the day and are 30–40 minutes
in length.
In March 2008,
Capital and
Counties proposed to reduce street performances by
approximately 50%. In the Courtyard, shows currently run back to
back from 10:30 am to 7:00 pm, with short breaks in between each
show, allowing for two shows each hour. Under the new proposal,
performances would be cut to one 30-minute show each hour. The
musicians and performers staged a demonstration "busk" in the
Piazza against these cuts on 27 March with the opera singer
Lesley Garrett who is supporting
their campaign. They have organised a petition which so far has
over 5,000 signatures including
Ken
Livingstone,
Brian Paddick,
Vasko Vassilev,
Brian Eno and
Victoria
Wood.
A street performer in front of the
Market
Royal Opera House
In the 1960s an extension to the rear of the Royal Opera House had
somewhat improved its facilities, but as time passed, it became
clear that a major remodelling was needed. In 1975 the government
gave adjacent land for the modernisation, refurbishment and
extension of the house and, by 1995, with the availability of
National Lottery
money, significant funds had been raised. A major reconstruction of
the building took place between 1996 and 2000, involving the
demolition of almost the whole site (except for the auditorium
itself), including several adjacent buildings, to make room for a
major increase in the overall scale of the complex. In terms of
volume, well over half of the complex is new.
The new opera house has greatly improved technical, rehearsal,
office and educational facilities, a new studio theatre, the
Linbury Theatre, and much more public space. The inclusion of the
adjacent old Floral Hall, long a part of the old Covent Garden
Market but in general disrepair for many years, into the actual
opera house created a new and extensive public gathering place. The
venue is now claimed by the ROH to be the most modern theatre
facility in Europe.
St Paul's Church
In 2005
the path leading up to the front of St Paul's
Church was given plaques similar to those in Leicester
Square
and the Hollywood Walk of Fame
, which became known as the Avenue of
Stars
. The plaques quickly deteriorated and only
lasted a year before being removed.
Transport and locale
Location in context
Also nearby
Nearest stations
Cultural connections
The marketplace and Royal Opera House were memorably brought
together in the opening of
George
Bernard Shaw's play,
Pygmalion, as well its musical
adaptation by
Alan Jay Lerner,
My Fair Lady. In both,
Professor
Henry Higgins is waiting
for a cab to take him home from the opera when he comes across
Eliza Doolittle selling flowers in
the market.
In the mid-1950s, before he directed such films as
If.... and
O Lucky
Man!,
Lindsay Anderson
directed a short film about the daily activities of the Covent
Garden market called
Every Day Except Christmas.
It shows 12 hours in the life of the market and market people, now
long gone from the area, but it also reflects three centuries of
tradition in the operation of the daily fruit and vegetable
market.
Alfred Hitchcock's 1972 film,
Frenzy, likewise takes place amongst
the pubs and fruit markets of Covent Garden. The serial sex killer
in
Frenzy is a local fruit vendor, and the film features
several blackly comic moments suggesting a metaphorical correlation
between the consumption of food and the act of rape–murder.
Hitchcock was the son of a retail greengrocer in North-East London
and would have known the area, so the film was partly conceived
(and marketed) as a nostalgic return to familiar streets from the
director's childhood.
Streets
Neal Street
Neal Street, named after
Thomas Neale
(1641-1699) who designed the
Seven Dials development and set up the first central postal
service in the American colonies, was home to the
punk club
The Roxy
in 1977. It is the centre of a
fashion-focused mid-market retailing district which
caters mainly for
young people.
Bibliography
- Boursnell, Clive, Covent Garden Market, London: Studio
Vista, 1977, ISBN 0-289-70806-0 (mainly author's photographs of the
Market activities and people)
References
External links
(Piccadilly
Line)
(Northern Line,
Bakerloo Line, National
Rail
)
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Northern Line)
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