St Paul's, Covent Garden

St Paul Covent Garden was a civil parish in the metropolitan area of London, England. The former area of the parish now corresponds to the Covent Garden market and surrounding streets in the City of Westminster.

Evans Music-and-Supper Rooms was an entertainment venue for music and singing in the early nineteenth century, located at 43 King Street, Covent Garden, London. The venue provided the type of entertainment which later evolved into music hall. What would later be known as the Evans Music and Supper Rooms was initially known as the Thomas Archer House. The house was built by Thomas Archer in 1712 for Admiral Edward Russell, the fourth Earl of Bedford's grandson. The House would later be sold to a man named Joy and turned into The Grand Hotel. Formerly the dining room of the Grand Hotel, a 'song and supper' room was established in the 1840s by W. H. Evans. It was also known as Evans Late Joy's, the venue previously being owned by a man named Joy. In 1842 the rooms were taken over by John Paddy Green, who had been one of Evans's entertainers. Green reconstructed the rooms and maintained their popular reputation. The room was 113 feet (34.4 m) long by 56 feet (17.1 m) wide.Evans' existed as the most popular song and supper room in the West End for some time during the late 1800s Entertainment was provided by choir boys singing madrigals and glees, followed by older comic singers such as Sam Cowell, Charles Sloman and Sam Collins. The patrons would eat, drink and talk at tables provided and participate in singalongs, sometimes of a "lewd" nature. A repeat performer there in the late 1870s was the comedian Arthur Roberts, who was known for his risqué act. In 1879, his performance of one of his "saucy" songs caused Evans's to lose its license for a year. The venue was patronised by William Makepeace Thackeray, who presented it (in a composite portrait with the Coal Hole and the Cyder Cellars, two nearby song-and-supper rooms) as "The Cave of Harmony" in his novel The Newcomes and as "The Back Kitchen" in Pendennis.Unlike the later music halls the patrons were male only, until the 1860s, when women were at last admitted. John Paddy Green said in an interview that women were not allowed in because they were uneducated. The venue closed in 1880, and in 1930 the upstairs rooms in the building were occupied by the Players' Theatre Club who wished to revive the music hall tradition. The cast became known as the "Late Joys" and have since provided old time music hall entertainment at a variety of other venues.

Middle Earth (formerly Electric Garden Club) was a hippie club in London, England, in the mid-to-late 1960s. It was a successor to the UFO Club, which had closed down due to police pressure and the imprisonment of its founder John Hopkins. Middle Earth was located in a large cellar at 43 King Street, in Covent Garden. It was a competitor to the Roundhouse at Chalk Farm, and after the King Street closure in 1968 it relocated there.

The National Sporting Club was a club founded in London in 1891, which did more to establish the sport of boxing in Great Britain than any other organisation.

The Avenue of Stars was a version of the Hollywood Walk of Fame in London, England. It opened in 2005 with one hundred names, and was a temporary installation to accompany a TV show to celebrate ITV's 50th birthday. The Avenue of Stars was a walkway through Covent Garden passing St Paul's Church, commonly known as the "Actors' Church". It honoured individuals or groups from the entertainment industry with notable achievements. As on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the individual or group was represented by a five-pointed star containing the name set into the walkway. To qualify for a star, the individual or group had to have been from the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, or a Commonwealth nation.The first inductee onto the Avenue of Stars was Jimmy Page, guitarist with Led Zeppelin. In 2006, all of the stars were removed, due to rapid deterioration and only the old flagstones are visible in the courtyard. American singer/songwriter Is'real Benton formed a U.S.-based eponymous foundation to restore the Walk of Fame.

Floral Street is a narrow street in the Covent Garden area of London, England. It runs east from Garrick Street to Bow Street and contains a number of fashion stores, including Paul Smith. The Upper School of the Royal Ballet School is located at 46 Floral Street, across the street from the back of the Royal Opera House.

Henrietta Street is a street in Covent Garden, London, that was once home to a number of artists and later became the location of many publishing firms.

The Dance Centre, previously at 12 Floral Street, Covent Garden, central London, England, was founded by Valerie Tomalin (née Hyman) in 1964 as a space where dance teachers could hire small studios by the hour and large ballet companies, such as The Royal Ballet and Ballet Rambert, could rent larger studios by the day or by the week. Individual artists such as Margot Fonteyn, Wayne Sleep and Rudolf Nureyev used the smaller spaces to privately fine-tune their performances. The venture was inspired by Valerie's fascination with ballet. As an art-student Valerie bought student tickets for The Royal Opera House top gallery so that she could see the great Russian dancers take command of the aging stage. Subsequently, Valerie became fascinated by modern dance and especially American jazz which was championed in those days by Matt Mattox.Other teachers who quickly found the facilities helpful include Gillian Gregory, Diana South, and Mike St.Leger Arlene Phillips, Lindsay Kemp, Molly Molloy and Gary Cockrell. Many of the dance students themselves went on to successful careers, for example David Bowie, who cites Lindsay Kemp's mime classes as being a fundamental inspiration for the character Ziggy Stardust, and Kate Bush.By the mid-1960s, the Dance Centre was a Covent Garden Landmark. At that time virtually all the other buildings in Floral Street were vegetable or fruit warehouses. In fact the Dance Centre itself had previously been a banana-drying warehouse and before that it was a poor school. As a listed three-storey building, the bell-tower can still be seen rising above the other Floral Street retail units. The fruit and vegetable market was established in the 1600s as a growing area literally annexed to a convent; hence the name. Eventually many west-end and national shows auditioned there and rehearsed there too.The Dance Centre also operated its own leading theatrical agency under Rob Gardell.It commissioned its own ballet shoes, tights, leotards and leg-warmers. The idea of such brand extension was pioneering in its day.It also created its own dance troupes called The Beat Girls, later to become Pan's People.In 1971, theatre producer Ian Albery asked The Dance Centre to help rent its warehouse (just around the corner in Earlham Street) to theatrical companies. So successful was The Dance Centre in reviving this space that the warehouse thrived and became The Donmar Theatre.Valerie Tomalin's business partner Gary Cockrell opened The Sanctuary next door at number 11 Floral Street, and Valerie opened The Costume Centre in King Street in the centre of Covent Garden just by the piazza.

Rules is a London restaurant on Maiden Lane in Covent Garden. Rules was founded in 1798 by Thomas Rule, and describes itself as London's oldest restaurant.

Maiden Lane is a street in Covent Garden, London, that runs from Bedford Street in the west to Southampton Street in the east. The painter J. M. W. Turner was born in the street in 1775.

The Lamb and Flag is a Grade II listed public house at Rose Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2.The building is erroneously said to date back to Tudor times, and to have been a licensed premises since 1623, but in fact dates from the early 18th century. The building became a pub in 1772.Situated in what was a violent area of Covent Garden, the pub's upstairs room once hosted bare-knuckle prize fights, leading to it being nicknamed "The Bucket of Blood". A plaque on the building commemorates an attack on John Dryden in a nearby alley in 1679, when Charles II sent men to assault Dryden in objection to a satirical verse against Louise de Kérouaille, Charles II's mistress. Writer Charles Dickens frequented the pub in the 19th century. The pub was refaced with brick in 1958.

The White Lion is a pub in Covent Garden, London, on the corner of James Street and Floral Street. There has been a pub called the White Lion on the site since at least 1839, and the current pub was rebuilt in 1888, as can be seen under the rampant lion at the top of the building. The White Lion Group, a radical political group in the 1820s and 1830s, with members including Dr Watson, and John Gale Jones, was named after the pub, as that had been their first meeting place.The White Lion was once used just by market traders and local people, but is now used mainly by tourists, office workers and opera goers.The pub is part of the Nicholson's pub chain.