Anglo-Saxon London

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.

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.

The Royal Opera House (ROH) is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The Royal Ballet, and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House. The first theatre on the site, the Theatre Royal (1732), served primarily as a playhouse for the first hundred years of its history. In 1734, the first ballet was presented. A year later, the first season of operas, by George Frideric Handel, began. Many of his operas and oratorios were specifically written for Covent Garden and had their premieres there. The current building is the third theatre on the site, following disastrous fires in 1808 and 1856 to previous buildings. The façade, foyer, and auditorium date from 1858, but almost every other element of the present complex dates from an extensive reconstruction in the 1990s. The main auditorium seats 2,256 people, making it the third largest in London, and consists of four tiers of boxes and balconies and the amphitheatre gallery. The proscenium is 14.80 metres (48 ft 7 in) wide, with the stage of the same depth and 12.20 metres (40 ft 0 in) high. The main auditorium is a Grade I listed building.

Benjamin Pollock's Toy Shop is a shop selling vintage and retro toys in London's Covent Garden. One of the oldest toy shops in London, it had its origins in Hoxton in 1851 before being taken over in 1877 by Benjamin Pollock, who ran it until his death in 1937. Coronation Street actor Peter Baldwin co-owned the shop from 1988 to his death in 2015. Located at 44 The Market Building, Benjamin Pollock's Toy Shop specialises in Victorian toy theatres, both original and reproduction, in addition to books, puppets, music boxes and other traditional toys.

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.

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.

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.

Bow Street is a thoroughfare in Covent Garden, Westminster, London. It connects Long Acre, Russell Street and Wellington Street, and is part of a route from St Giles to Waterloo Bridge. The street was developed in 1633 by Francis Russell, 4th Earl of Bedford for residential purposes. A number of notable people lived here in the 17th and 18th centuries, including Oliver Cromwell and Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford. In the 18th century, the street declined as a place of residence following the establishment of the nearby Covent Garden Theatre, which led to a reputation for prostitution. During the 19th century, Bow Street was a de facto extension of Covent Garden and its associated markets, selling then-exotic fruit and vegetables.Bow Street has a strong connection with the law; the Bow Street Runners, an early voluntary police force, was established here by Henry Fielding in 1750, and the Metropolitan Police Service operated a station house from 1832, which led to the construction of the Bow Street Magistrates' Court. Today, only a short run of buildings from No. 35 to Russell Street remain on their original sites; the rest having been given up for large buildings.

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.

The London Transport Museum (often abbreviated as the LTM) is a transport museum based in Covent Garden, London. The museum mainly hosts exhibits related to the heritage of London's transport, as well as conserving and explaining the history of it. The majority of the museum's exhibits originated in the collections of London Transport, but, since the creation of Transport for London (TfL) in 2000, the remit of the museum has expanded to cover all aspects of transportation in the city. The museum operates from two sites within London. The main site in Covent Garden uses the name of its parent institution, and is open to the public every day, having reopened in 2007 after a two-year refurbishment. The other site, located in Acton, is known as the London Transport Museum Depot and is principally a storage site of historic artefacts that is open to the public on scheduled visitor days throughout the year. The museum was briefly renamed London's Transport Museum to reflect its coverage of topics beyond London Transport, but it reverted to its previous name in 2007 to coincide with the reopening of the Covent Garden site.

Bow Street Magistrates' Court became one of the most famous magistrates' court in England. Over its 266-year existence it occupied various buildings on Bow Street in Central London, immediately north-east of Covent Garden. It closed in 2006 and its work moved to a set of four magistrates' courts: Westminster, Camberwell Green, Highbury Corner and the City of London Magistrates' Court. The senior magistrate at Bow Street until 2000 was the Chief Metropolitan Stipendiary Magistrate. The building, which is grade II listed, is now a hotel and police museum.

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.