Description
Covent Garden is the district at the eastern fringe of London's West End, built around an elegant piazza with arcades, street performers, shops, cafés and the Royal Opera House. It is one of the liveliest parts of the city, and it began as a garden.
The name is a clue. In the Middle Ages this was the walled garden of the abbey and convent of Westminster. After Henry VIII seized the monasteries, the land passed to the Earls of Bedford, and in 1630 the 4th Earl called in the architect Inigo Jones.
Jones gave London its first modern square, an Italian-style piazza with arcaded houses and a church, St Paul's, the "Actors' Church", built in 1633 to 1638. A fruit and vegetable market grew up in the square from 1654, followed by taverns, coffee houses and brothels, and the rich moved out.
The Market Building, a neoclassical hall of granite by Charles Fowler, went up in 1830. Fruit and vegetables moved to Nine Elms in 1974, and after protests saved the buildings from redevelopment, the hall reopened in 1980 as shops, cafés and the Apple Market.
Under its roof and in the piazza, street performers take the stage in half-hour slots, juggling, singing opera and playing music. Their tradition is old: in May 1662 Samuel Pepys saw here the first recorded Punch and Judy show in Britain.
The Royal Opera House, with an auditorium dating from 1858, is home to the Royal Opera and the Royal Ballet. The London Transport Museum is in an 1871 flower market hall, with historic buses, trams and trains.
The district is full of stories. Shaw's Eliza Doolittle, of Pygmalion and My Fair Lady, sold her flowers here, and Hitchcock filmed Frenzy here in 1972. Johann Strauss II wrote a waltz about the place in 1867.
Covent Garden also has London's shortest tube journey: from its station to Leicester Square is less than 300 yards.
The name is a clue. In the Middle Ages this was the walled garden of the abbey and convent of Westminster. After Henry VIII seized the monasteries, the land passed to the Earls of Bedford, and in 1630 the 4th Earl called in the architect Inigo Jones.
Jones gave London its first modern square, an Italian-style piazza with arcaded houses and a church, St Paul's, the "Actors' Church", built in 1633 to 1638. A fruit and vegetable market grew up in the square from 1654, followed by taverns, coffee houses and brothels, and the rich moved out.
The Market Building, a neoclassical hall of granite by Charles Fowler, went up in 1830. Fruit and vegetables moved to Nine Elms in 1974, and after protests saved the buildings from redevelopment, the hall reopened in 1980 as shops, cafés and the Apple Market.
Under its roof and in the piazza, street performers take the stage in half-hour slots, juggling, singing opera and playing music. Their tradition is old: in May 1662 Samuel Pepys saw here the first recorded Punch and Judy show in Britain.
The Royal Opera House, with an auditorium dating from 1858, is home to the Royal Opera and the Royal Ballet. The London Transport Museum is in an 1871 flower market hall, with historic buses, trams and trains.
The district is full of stories. Shaw's Eliza Doolittle, of Pygmalion and My Fair Lady, sold her flowers here, and Hitchcock filmed Frenzy here in 1972. Johann Strauss II wrote a waltz about the place in 1867.
Covent Garden also has London's shortest tube journey: from its station to Leicester Square is less than 300 yards.