Seven Dials Trust, Covent Garden

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Seven Dials Trust, Covent Garden

A unique Central London Trust which has been instrumental in urban public realm regeneration.

Our story began in 1977 when Seven Dials was in a state of dereliction, with 90% of the housing stock having lain vacant for more than 40 years in anticipation of wholesale demolition and redevelopment. To kick start the process of regeneration and encourage private investment, Camden Council established The Seven Dials Housing Action Area (1977-1984) - six residents and six businesses supported by a group of Camden officers. Grants were made available to freeholders and the local authority could, in extremis, undertake works. Our HAA had great success, with over 200 residential units rehabilitated, initial public realm improvements implemented and further public and private housing secured. On the expiration of the HAA we were invited by Camden's CEO to set up a group to continue further improvements in the area and to reinstate the lost Seven Dials Sundial Pillar. This group became a registered charity and a company limited by guarantee, known first as The Seven Dials Monument Charity (1984) and then The Seven Dials Trust (2003). The Trust has established a fruitful and exemplary partnership between the voluntary sector, local authorities and the private sector, driving complex, long-term projects to completion through changing political priorities and ownerships. We have initiated and raised funds for projects designed to celebrate and enhance the distinct identity of Seven Dials. Our work has encouraged substantial investment in the public realm from the private sector. The Trust’s vision is set out in the Seven Dials Renaissance Study. The Trust is managed by a board of trustees, some of whom have long links with Covent Garden, going back to the days of the famous 1971 Covent Garden Public Inquiry, when much of the area was scheduled to be demolished. This continued commitment is invaluable due to the long-term nature of many of our projects. When funds are available, the Trust employs a part-time Coordinator. We are grateful to all our funders and supporters – the many generous individuals, local and national agencies, organisations and companies who have contributed to our work since 1984. In addition to sponsorship and grant-aid this support includes thousands of hours of unpaid work, pro bono expert advice and in-kind contributions.

30/08/2026

The 19th century Ophthalmic professions of St Giles High Street!
In the 19th century, two related ophthalmic businesses were a few doors from each other by Middle Row on Broad Street St Giles (today's St Giles High Street).
At No.37, James Chamberlain's Optician sold 'eye preserving spectacles of superior materials & manufactured upon unerring principles, at half the price usually charged by other opticians'. These were made in Bowl Yard, reached through a covered way in the front of the building. Bowl Yard (see map) stretches southward and is today's Endell Street but in 1623 it was the site of the Bowl Inn and Brewery long since demolished.
Two doors to the east of Chamberlain's at No.39 Broad Street St Giles, was the rather more dubious 'ophthalmic business' of William Grimstone. The sole inventor of an eye s***f, his shop facade claimed that this would restore sight and cure headaches and that his company was, 'patronised by his late Majesty, the Lords of the Tresury (sic), the Duchess of Kent, and the Royal Family'.
This proclamation was clearly aimed at enticing prospective clients to try his quack eye s***f - before having to resort to inconvenient spectacles…

18/08/2026

Aldridge's Horse Bazaar - 'People's Plaque' sponsored by Westminster Council
Aldridge's Horse Bazaar or the Repository for Horses and Carriages was sited upon what is now no.5 Upper St Martin's Lane (present day Orion House and Meridian House). It was originally a famous horse mart close to the heart of London's coach or carriage building district on Long Acre, which flourished during the years 1753 to 1940.
Aldridge's was known as the prime market for sales of working horses and for those owned and traded by the middle classes. However, during the mid 19th century there were accusations of insider dealing and there are several cases that connect the market to horse stealing that appear in the Old Bailey records. This led the proprietor to advertise auctions with the caveat that, "under no circumstances is the practice of misrepresenting the ownership of horses ever resorted to". In 1895, Aldridge's was still being advertised as being “specially famous for the sale of middleclass and tradesmen's horses”.
The last horse sale at Aldridge’s was in 1926, by which time there were many greyhound and motor cars sales, which were sold there from 1907. The company left the site in 1940 and the site was demolished during the late 1950s.

31/07/2026

Thomas Letchford's British Coffee House, No.37 High Street Bloomsbury (St Giles High Street), from 1834 onwards

In the 1830s, the High Street in St Giles was bustling during the day - and busy all of the night too. Thomas Letchford kept his British Coffee House from 1834 onwards and served a great many people daily, often between 700 - 900 customers! His establishment opened at 4am and had three rooms: the ground floor had a front and back room, whilst upstairs another room was kept for his better paying customers, where he charged 3d per cup for coffee. The ground front room was for the 'hard working class' and was the most frequented, as beverages were 1d a cup. Here, a workman might come in three times a day, beginning at 4am for coffee and bread, 8am for breakfast and 1pm for further coffee and bread, accompanied by his own meat. In this busy environment, his customers spent the time chatting or reading from the nine daily papers that were on offer.

I am indebted to Dr James Nye and the Antiquarian Horologist for this fascinating insight into the lives of the working poor in Victorian St. Giles.

18/07/2026

The Angel Inn site has a fascinating history. After the dissolution of the L***r Hospital at St. Giles-in-the-Fields in 1539, four early dwellings called the Spittle Houses (one of which was on the future inn's site), passed into Katherine Legh's ownership. She was the daughter of Sir Thomas Legh, formerly King Henry VIII's 'visitor of the monasteries', who was granted lands on the eastern side of the Hospital.
Katherine Legh's last property nearest the church became a hostelry called The Angel and this developed into a major coaching inn, catering for those leaving the 'west end' of the city for the country. The inn had a galleried rear with stabling for horses which you can see here, captured in 1873 in a drawing by John Eaton Walker. He drew the old pub before it was demolished and a new inn built on the same site.
In his 'Survey of London' (1720), John Strype found the Angel to be 'a place of good resort' but the pub later became notorious as the last inn to offer ‘The St Giles Bowl’ to condemned felons on route to be hanged at Tyburn. The custom was for the landlord to emerge with a bowl of ale for the condemned who stood on the back of a cart. A local legend from the history of The Angel, states that in the 18th century, one poor landlord was taken off to Tyburn with the prisoners on the cart and hanged too!
On November 16th 1724, the convicted highwayman Jack Shepherd partook of the Bowl before declaring to the assembled throng, 'give the rest to Jonathan Wild' (the thief-taker who had reported him to the authorities). The same fate befell Wild some time after.
The old inn was replaced in 1873 by the present public house. As for the St. Giles Bowl, a replica was on display in St. Giles church for many years according to the much-missed local historian and long-time resident Sharon Peppard.

30/06/2026

Seven years ago on the 30th June 2019, the Seven Dials Trust held celebrations to mark 30 Years of the Sundial Pillar and the Trust's 35th birthday! This was a large multifaceted event across the Dials and featured local historical 'guest appearances' and many street performers. The afternoon culminated in a toast to the Sundial Pillar and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands who originally unveiled it back in 1989.
Our photographer for the event was Gerrard McNamara who took some wonderful portrait shots of visitors and performers to mark the occasion. I'm featuring here our performers on the day, all suitably dressed for the celebrations! Here are images courtesy of and who shot the poet and performer Stephen Micalef.
Seven Dials, Covent Garden dials history pillar Love Camden

19/06/2026

Jim Cadbury-Brown - Seven Dials Trust People’s Plaque
No.32 Neal Street
1964-82
Henry Thomas Cadbury-Brown, “Jim”, was the son of a Royal Horse Artillery officer who was part of the Cadbury chocolate family. Educated by a governess and later at Westminster school, he went on to the Architectural Association and got a job with Ernö Goldfinger, learning about Modernism and reinforced concrete. He set up his own practice in Mayfair in 1937 but war intervened. After WWll, he was one of the designers for the Festival of Britain in 1951.
Cadbury-Brown's most prestigious commission was for the Royal College of Art. This was opened in 1963 at Kensington Gore. The building was compared, in its architectural and experimental dynamism, to Mackintosh's Glasgow School of Art. Here I can add my own anecdotes about the building, as from 1986-88, I was on the 9th floor of the Jay Mews building. Each day I had to go through a tropical bird house built on the 7th and 8th floors of the tower block! This was habitat for tropical finches and one lone Peruvian dove. Below, a river ran through it with koi carp! The room was kept at a tropical rainforest temperature too. I'm assuming the bird house was in the original building plans: it was designed for the Natural Illustration department.
In 1964, Jim Cadbury-Brown moved his office and his own living quarters to No.32 Neal Street and here was commissioned to design the GLC’s World's End Estate in Chelsea. Later he was professor of architecture at the Royal Academy (1975-88) where he undertook the internal remodelling of Burlington House.
Jim married the American architect Betty Elwyn in 1953 and together they designed their own remarkable house in Aldeburgh. Modest and uninterested in self-promotion, he was something of a dandy.
The RCA in association with Historic England made this recent announcement- https://www.rca.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/royal-college-of-art-announces-ambitious-plans-for-the-renewal-of-its-kensington-site/

31/05/2026

In the 1920s, a rather unusual music hall opened on the south side of Lloyds Court (now Flitcroft Street by St. Giles-in-the-Fields church) and the corner of Stacey Street. Previously the site of a candied lemon factory, this new venue was called the Alcazar and the long, narrow hall was entered via the Charing Cross Road. Created by the impresario Lucien Samett , the Alcazar hosted all-day entertainment, a continuous programme of variety acts which played across three stages that the public could wander between. The constant turn-around of artists, some new to London, others familiar on the circuit, meant that the music hall drew many West End theatre managers (admitted for free) on the look-out for new talent to book for their own theatres. Hence, the venue was used as a kind of audition space.
It seems that Samett set up his Alcazar theatre as an experiment - it was initially successful but soon declined to offer a more dubious kind of entertainment for the paying public, a 'Fun City', boasting 'Posing Models' and 'Beautiful Artists', playing alongside slot machines.
Today a Soho Housing Association block of flats (named after the old music hall) sits upon part of the old theatre site. It's possible that the backstage entrance of the present-day Phoenix Theatre might occupy the width of the old theatre building which years ago ran back up Flitcroft Street to the Charing Cross Road.
Images: Oxford Music Hall, 1875 - London Theatre Museum Collection, The Balcony of the Alhambra - Spencer Gore, 1910-11; George Leybourne as ‘Champagne Charlie’ - sheet music cover, c.1866. All images public domain. The Alcazar site today - Jane Palm-Gold

18/05/2026

The present-day site of the Donmar Warehouse theatre has an interesting history. This 250 seat venue is situated within what was previously the hop warehouse and vat room of the extensive Woodyard Brewery, founded here c1722. In 1787, Combe & Co. Ltd. acquired the business and eventually amalgamated with other major breweries to form Watney, Combe, Reid & Co. Ltd. in 1898. The Woodyard Brewery closed in 1905.
By the late 1920s, the buildings had become the Raycol British Corporation, a colour film laboratory. However, in 1933 the business closed as their two-colour additive system was replaced by advances in other film processing techniques. The buildings then became a banana ripening warehouse for Covent Garden Market until the Donmar bought the site in 1961.
The Donmar Warehouse theatre is named after the impresario Donald Albery and his friend, legendary ballerina, Dame Margot Fonteyne. The buildings were initially purchased to be the private rehearsal studio for the London Festival Ballet but later on became the home of the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1977-81, when it was renamed 'Warehouse'. An early production staged there in 1977 was Trevor Nunn's 'Macbeth' with Judi Dench and Ian McKellen; another notable production was 'Educating Rita' with Julie Walters and Mark Kingston in 1980 which went on to become one of the RSC's biggest successes.
During the 1980s, the theatre became a base for the most innovative touring companies in the UK. Notable artistic directors of the Donmar Warehouse include Sam Mendes (1992 - 2002) and Michael Grandage (2002-2011).

30/04/2026

The lost almshouses and dwellings of Middle Row, St Giles.
On a 1720 parish map of St Giles, just east of St. Giles-in-the-Fields church lay the dwellings of Middle Row and the parish almshouses. These were two isolated blocks of houses in the middle of the main Broad St Giles thoroughfare (now St. Giles High Street).
The almshouses (marked blue on the 1720 map) were built in 1656 to accommodate aged widows of the parish, who were each given 7 farthings per day beside 'coal and other bounties'. Previously the village pound had stood on this new almshouse site and had been moved to what we now call St. Giles Circus (roughly where Centrepoint is now). In 1783, the St Giles almshouses were rebuilt and the tenants moved to Lewknor's Lane or present-day Macklin Street. They are still there today.
The almshouses and Middle Row (brown on the parish map) are already in existence on the Wencelaus Hollar map (created between 1660-66) but neither appear on the Faithorne and Newcourt map of 1658, so it can be assumed roughly when these buildings were erected.
Middle Row.
There are only a couple of recorded occupants listed as living at Middle Row: in 1675, one of the dwellings was occupied by a Lady Katherine Cope. However by 1835, Middle Row was a far less desirable address and the central house in the Row was taken by Apted's 'fresh and shell fishmongers'.
By the 19th century, the dwellings were known as Middle Row Bloomsbury to distinguish them from the more famous Row at High Holborn. They were finally pulled down in the 1840s to allow the new Endell Street to be cut through.

16/04/2026

50 Years of Punk: The dawning of Punk and The Roxy Club, 41-43 Neal Street, 1976-78
In the early 70s London was gloomy, grimy, impoverished and still pockmarked with World War ll bomb damage. Seven Dials had served the famous Covent Garden Market since 1670 and the 18th century streets of the area were unchanged, full of old warehouses and shops with underground spaces for produce storage. In 1974 the area changed completely when the market moved to Nine Elms at Vauxhall. This noisome area that for 24 hours a day bustled with commerce and trade, where lorries and barrows jostled for space within its packed streets, became silent literally overnight. A vacuum was left which was soon filled by artists, creative industries and clubs.

The embryonic Punk scene can be traced back to 1975 and gay club Chagueramas, the forerunner of the Roxy Club. The club was drawing early punks, called the ‘Bromley Contingent’ - Siouxsie and Steve Severin (who formed Siouxsie & the Banshees), Soo Catwoman, Gene October (Chelsea) and even John Beverley (or Sid Vicious of S*x Pistols). These LGBTQIA+ clubs (Chagueramas and Louise’s, a Le***an club in Poland Street) provided a safe haven to relax and a place for an early punk scene to evolve.
By late 1976, Chagueramas was facing closure when Gene October proposed it as a possible new Punk venue to Andrew Czezowski and business partner Barry Jones. They named the new club, The Roxy and it gave early Punk bands a much-needed venue to play in.
The Seven Dials Trust ‘People’s Plaque’ for The Roxy Club can be found at 41-43 Neal Street - this was unveiled in April 2017 by (The Slits) (Pe*******on) (The Adverts)

Address

Seven Dials, Covent Garden
London
WC2H9

Telephone

+442074375512

Website

http://www.sevendials.com/, https://sevendialscoventgarden.study/

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