Covent Garden

Covent Garden 1737

Covent Garden is a district of London, located on the eastern fringe of the West End. It is mainly associated with the former fruit and vegetable market located in the central square which is now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as “Covent Garden”.

John Russell 1st Earl of Bedford

In the 16th century, it was an Anglo-Saxon trading town of Lundenwic for a brief time, before becoming “the garden of the Abbey and Convent”, associated with Westminster Abbey. In 1540 Henry VIII took the land belonging to the Abbey after the Dissolution of the Monasteries, including, what was by then named “the Covent Garden”. Henry’s son then granted to John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford in 1552.

Francis Russell, 4th Earl of Bedford

It was the The 4th Earl, Francis Russell (1593-1641), who commissioned Inigo Jones to develop the area. The commission had been prompted by Charles I who took offence at the condition of the road and houses along Long Acre. Work began in 1631 with the building of the church of St Paul’s, the first protestant church in England after the restoration.It was completed in 1633 at a cost of £4000, and consecrated in 1638.

The houses and piazza were completed in 1637. The design of the square was new to London, and had a significant influence on modern town planning in London. I was became a prototype that was much repeated. as the city grew.

The fruit and vegetable market began as a small open air market on the south side of the fashionable square around 1654. In time, Coven Garden became and area of disrepute with taverns, theatres, coffee-houses and prostitutes. The gentry started to leave and a more bohemian population moved in. By the 18th century Covent Garden had become a well-known red-light district, attracting notable prostitutes, and Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies, a guidebook to the prostitutes and whorehouses, became a bestseller.

An Act of Parliament was drawn up to control the area, and Charles Fowler’s neo-classical building of 1830 was designed to cover and organise the market. other buildings were added later: the Floral Hall, Charter Market, and in 1904, the Jubilee Market.

By the 1960s, traffic congestion was causing problems, and in 1974 the market relocated to the New Covent Garden Market at Nine Elms, in a suburb of London. The central building re-opened as a shopping centre in 1980, and is now a popular tourist location containing cafes, pubs, small shops, and a craft market called the Apple Market; along with another market held in the Jubilee Hall.

Covent Garden and the St Paul’s Church, Covent Garden are visited on the London Grand Tour. Follow the link to make a tour reservation