London Transport Museum

Button's Coffee House was an 18th-century coffeehouse in London, England. It was situated in Russell Street, Covent Garden, between the City and Westminster.

Tom King's Coffee House (later known as Moll King's Coffee House) was a notorious establishment in Covent Garden, London in the mid-18th century. Open from the time the taverns shut until dawn, it was ostensibly a coffee house, but in reality served as a meeting place for prostitutes and their customers. By refusing to provide beds, the Kings ensured that they never risked charges of brothel-keeping, but the venue was nevertheless a rowdy drinking den and a favourite target for the moral reformers of the day.

The Theatre Museum in the Covent Garden district of London, England, was the United Kingdom's national museum of the performing arts. It was a branch of the UK's national museum of applied arts, the Victoria and Albert Museum. It opened in 1974 and closed in 2007, being replaced by new galleries at the V&A's main site in South Kensington.The Theatre Museum told the story of the performing arts in Britain from the sixteenth century to the present. It covered all the live performing arts including drama, dance, opera, musical theatre, circus, puppetry, music hall and live art. It claimed to have the largest collections of documents and artefacts on these subjects in the world. Costumes, designs, manuscripts, books, video recordings, including the National Video Archive of Performance, posters and paintings were used to reconstruct the details of past performances and the lives of performers, past and contemporary. The museum received its main funding from the British government via the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and admission was free.

Cabaret Mechanical Theatre is an English organisation that mounts exhibitions around the world of contemporary automata by a collective of artists. Founded by Sue Jackson, the group played a central role in the revival of automata from the 1970s onwards, and Jackson championed the idea of automata as a form of contemporary art.Cabaret Mechanical Theatre was started in 1979 in Falmouth, Cornwall, where Jackson encouraged local artists Peter Markey, Paul Spooner and Ron Fuller to manufacture automata for her craft shop, "Cabaret". The shop became an exhibition space and the collection moved to Covent Garden, central London, in 1984, remaining there until 2000 when rising rates forced it to close.Part of the Cabaret Mechanical Theatre collection remains on display at the American Visionary Arts Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.

The London Film Museum, founded and created by Jonathan Sands in February 2008, is a museum dedicated to the British film industry. It was previously known as The Movieum of London and was originally situated in County Hall, but moved to a Covent Garden location in April 2012.It exhibits original props, costumes and sets from feature films. There was originally a section on how films are made, including information on all the major studios. Original pieces included costumes and props from British films, the autogyro 'Little Nellie' from You Only Live Twice, an original Superman meteor, the Rank Organisation gong used in their opening titles, and armour made by Terry English. There was also a corridor explaining how films are made with the chance to talk to those involved. Two previous special exhibitions have been: Ray Harryhausen - Myths & Legends. This 2010 exhibition featured original creatures from Ray Harryhausen's films including Pegasus, Medusa, and Talos. Charlie Chaplin - The Great Londoner. This covered his early life in Lambeth, and featured Chaplin's original bowler hat and cane with storage boxes. From March 2014, the Museum was dedicated to the Bond in Motion - The Largest Official Collection of James Bond Vehicles exhibition. This featured cars, other vehicles and original props from the film series. Bond in Motion closed during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. From July 2021 it was replaced by the Harry Potter Photographic Exhibition.

Jubilee Market is located in Jubilee Hall in Covent Garden, London.The first market in Covent Garden piazza took place in 1654, and Jubilee Market was built in 1904, covering Tavistock Street, named after the then Duke of Bedford, Marquess of Tavistock. It is the only market in London to be wholly owned by traders, who took over the market to save it from bankruptcy. After a major renovation of the market itself, beginning in 1985 and lasting two years, Jubilee Market was opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 5 August 1987, as commemorated by a headstone in the façade of the market. The market changes its wares during the week. Monday is entirely devoted to antiques, Tuesday to Thursday is the general market, while Saturday and Sunday are dedicated to arts and crafts items.

The Rock Garden was a music venue located at 6/9 The Piazza, Covent Garden in London. Opening in 1976, the basement venue hosted thousands of live music acts and became popular with up-and-coming punk rock and new wave artists of the time. It has been widely reported that U2 played their first London gig at the venue and that Dire Straits had a weekly residency at the club for a number of months. The Smiths played their first ever London show at the Rock Garden on the 23 March 1983. Talking Heads played the band’s first UK gig at the Rock Garden on 13 May 1977. Other artists that performed at the venue include: Iron Maiden, The Police, XTC, Adam and The Ants, Patti Smith and Suede.In 1990s it become a nightclub and music venue called The Gardening Club. In August 2010, Apple opened an Apple Store across 1-7 The Piazza, Covent Garden on the former site of the Rock Garden restaurant and the Gardening Club.

System Simulation (SSL) is a software engineering company now specialising in text and multimedia information systems, based in Covent Garden, central London, England, and founded in 1970.Under the chairmanship of John Lansdown, following collaborative research work at the Royal College of Art, System Simulation carried out pioneering computer animation work, applying computer graphics techniques in TV and film creating many advertising sequences, the flight deck instrumentation readouts on the Nostromo spaceship for Ridley Scott's Alien, and the animation of Martin Lambie-Nairn's original Channel 4 logo.More recently System Simulation has specialised in museum information systems, commercial and archival image library systems, information management and delivery for publishers, news services and professional and commercial organisations. MuseumIndex+, the museum information management system, supports collections management, digital archives and interactive public access. Clients include the British Museum, London Transport Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Getty Images, SCRAN (Scottish Cultural Resources Access Network) and Culture24. They develop content management systems, and CD-ROM/Web products and services for the publishing sector and for information service providers. The company provides technical support for the online services of Culture24, the UK's leading virtual museum resource.The company has often hosted meetings of the Computer Arts Society.

Will's Coffee House was one of the foremost coffeehouses in England in the decades after the Restoration. It was situated in Russell Street in London, at the northwest corner of Bow Street, between the City and Westminster. According to the Methuen Drama Dictionary of the Theatre, it was also known as the Rose Tavern, the Russell Street Coffee House, and the Wits' Coffee House. It was founded by Will Unwin.

Bedford House was the Elizabethan and Jacobean London home of the Russell family, Earls of Bedford, situated on the Strand. Bedford House, also called Russell House was on the site of the present Southampton Street on the north side of the Strand. It was demolished in 1704 after the family had relocated to Bloomsbury. The site was on or adjacent to the lodging or Inn of the Bishops of Carlisle. John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford acquired the land, Longacre, in May 1552 at the fall of Protector Somerset. The Russell family already had a house on the south side of the Strand, with land running down to the Thames near Ivybridge Street. This property passed to Bridget Hussey, the widow of Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford, and was sold.

The history of Anglo-Saxon London relates to the history of the city of London during the Anglo-Saxon period, in the 7th to 11th centuries. Romano-British Londinium had been abandoned in the late 5th century, although the London Wall remained intact. There was an Anglo-Saxon settlement by the early 7th century, called Lundenwic, about one mile west of Londinium, to the north of the present Strand. Lundenwic came under direct Mercian control in about 670. After the death of Offa of Mercia in 796, it was disputed between Mercia and Wessex. Viking invasions became frequent from the 830s, and a Viking army is believed to have camped in the old Roman walls during the winter of 871. Alfred the Great reestablished English control of London in 886, and renewed its fortifications. The old Roman walls were repaired and the defensive ditch was recut, and the old Roman city became the main site of population. The city now became known as Lundenburg, marking the beginning of the history of the City of London. Sweyn Forkbeard attacked London unsuccessfully in 996 and 1013, but his son Cnut the Great finally gained control of London, and all of England, in 1016. Edward the Confessor, the stepson of Cnut, became king in 1042. He built Westminster Abbey, the first large Romanesque church in England, consecrated in 1065, and the first Palace of Westminster. These were located just up-river from the city. Edward's death led to a succession crisis, and ultimately the Norman invasion of England.

Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and with the Royal Opera House, itself known as "Covent Garden". The district is divided by the main thoroughfare of Long Acre, north of which is given over to independent shops centred on Neal's Yard and Seven Dials, while the south contains the central square with its street performers and most of the historical buildings, theatres and entertainment facilities, including the London Transport Museum and the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. The area was fields until briefly settled in the 7th century when it became the heart of the Anglo-Saxon trading town of Lundenwic, then abandoned at the end of the 9th century after which it returned to fields. By 1200 part of it had been walled off by the Abbot of Westminster Abbey for use as arable land and orchards, later referred to as "the garden of the Abbey and Convent", and later "the Convent Garden". Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries it was granted in 1552 by the young King Edward VI to John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford (c.1485–1555), the trusted adviser to his father King Henry VIII. The 4th Earl commissioned Inigo Jones to build some fine houses to attract wealthy tenants. Jones designed the Italianate arcaded square along with the church of St Paul's. The design of the square was new to London and had a significant influence on modern town planning, acting as the prototype for new estates as London grew.By 1654 a small open-air fruit-and-vegetable market had developed on the south side of the fashionable square. Gradually, both the market and the surrounding area fell into disrepute, as taverns, theatres, coffee-houses and brothels opened up. By the 18th century it had become notorious for its abundance of brothels. An Act of Parliament was drawn up to control the area, and Charles Fowler's neo-classical building was erected in 1830 to cover and help organise the market. The market grew and further buildings were added: the Floral Hall, Charter Market, and in 1904 the Jubilee Market. By the end of the 1960s traffic congestion was causing problems, and in 1974 the market relocated to the New Covent Garden Market about three miles (5 km) south-west at Nine Elms. The central building re-opened as a shopping centre in 1980 and is now a 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 falls within the London boroughs of Westminster and Camden and the parliamentary constituencies of Cities of London and Westminster and Holborn and St Pancras. The area has been served by the Piccadilly line at Covent Garden tube station since 1907; the 300 yard journey from Leicester Square tube station is the shortest in London.