White Lion, Covent Garden

The Nag's Head is a Grade II listed public house at 10 James Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2.

Covent Garden is a London Underground station serving Covent Garden and the surrounding area in the West End of London. It is on the Piccadilly line between Leicester Square and Holborn stations and is in Travelcard Zone 1. The station is at the corner of Long Acre and James Street and the street-level concourse is a Grade II listed building.

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.

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.

Long Acre is a street in the City of Westminster in central London. It runs from St Martin's Lane, at its western end, to Drury Lane in the east. The street was completed in the early 17th century and was once known for its coach-makers, and later for its car dealers.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Carpenter's Coffee House (later known as "The Finish", "The Queen's Head" and "Jack's") was a coffee house in Covent Garden, London, established by George Carpenter some time around 1762. Carpenter had been a strongman and then worked as a porter in Covent Garden. By 1745, he had established himself as a fruit salesman in the market, and by hard work had made himself comparatively wealthy. He later became ill, and was unable to work for a considerable time. Without an income, he was forced to use his savings to provide for himself during his illness. He was reduced to pawning his possessions, but eventually recovered and managed to re-establish himself as a successful stall holder, finally becoming the lessee of the market in 1762. Leasing the market for a fee of £500 from the Duke of Bedford entitled Carpenter to collect rents of around £700 a year. Two of the shacks in the Great Piazza facing the Little Piazza (or hummums) were being used as a coffee house when he gained control of the market and Carpenter took these over, renamed them "Carpenter's Coffee House", and installed his parents as managers. Carpenter was uninterested in serving coffee to his customers, and the quality of the coffee was poor, William Hickey describing it in 1766 as "a spartan mixture difficult to ascertain the ingredients but which was served as coffee".Carpenter's intention may have been that the establishment should serve as a rendezvous for prostitutes from the brothels that surrounded the piazza and their customers, much as Tom King's Coffee House had in previous decades. Beer and punch were also served, the beer brewed by Theodore Savage who boasted how many men the potent recipe had shown "the way home". By 1768 Carpenter's had become known by the nickname "The Finish" describing its role for those out for a night on the town; when all the other coffee houses and taverns were closed the revellers would make their way to Carpenter's to finish out the night, in Hickey's words "the last of those nocturnal Resorts for which Covent Garden was famous".As the customers were mostly drunk and oblivious by the time they arrived, the cleanliness of the establishment was not high on the list of priorities. Rats abounded and it had a reputation as a dirty, disreputable place. Samuel Foote may have worked there before taking to the stage, and was reputed to have named the rats and fed them on the dregs of the beer. The coffee house seems to have escaped the fire that destroyed many of the buildings of the Little Piazza in 1769. Carpenter died around 1785, and the management of the coffee house passed to his barmaid Anne Crosdell (also known as Mrs. Gibson because she was living with John Gibson, a cook in the Bedford Arms opposite the coffee house). By 1788 it was being run by Elizabeth Butler, a former brothel-keeper, who had run a successful business in King Street, just off the Great Piazza. Though still known as "The Finish" it was also referred to as "The Queen's Head". Despite Butler's reputation as a cheerful generous hostess, the reputation of Carpenter's, if anything, had grown worse. Thieves and murderers used the establishment to lie in wait for their victims, robbing the drunken revellers of their money, watches and valuables, often assaulting them in the process and occasionally murdering them. At the beginning of the 19th century it had become a favourite haunt of boxers with many of the famous London pugilists of the time being regular customers. Butler continued to run the coffee house until around 1812; although she was still alive in 1825, by 1815 Ann Butler (whose relationship to Elizabeth is not known) was running the coffee house. In 1825 Jack Rowbottom took over the lease and the building became known as "Jack's". Rowbottom did nothing to improve the reputation of the coffee house; under his tenure fights and disturbances were common, and Rowbottom was arrested so frequently as a result that it was remarked that "his Residence alternated between the Fleet and the King's Bench prisons".The building was demolished in 1866.

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.