Seven Dials Covent Garden is a unique quarter of London whose star-shaped layout remains as constructed in the early 1690s. It was brought back to life largely through the dedication of the Seven Dials Trust, working in partnership with the local authorities and landowners for nearly forty years.

William Hodge's extraordinary painting of Seven Dials, created in 1776, just after the Sundial Pillar's removal, looking towards Mercer Street with the Crown public house on the right hand side. (Courtesy of the Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre Library, London Borough of Camden). Circa 1910. A view of the corner of Earlham Street (west) and Mercer Street (north). On…

Illustration from Knight's London, 1842. Charles Knight published a variety of illustrated works such as Old England and the Land we Live in and the Pictorial Gallery of Arts, based on the Great Exhibition of 1851. Knight's London, 1842 A CDV photograph of Charles Knight in old age, circa 1865 by London photographer Ernest Edwards (1837-1903). "It is time to…

Maps of Seven Dials over the last 300+ years show how the basic street layout has remained little changed. The slum clearance and road widening to make present-day Shaftesbury Avenue reduced the size of the area but the characteristic layout has been retained and an old route, Cucumber Alley, has been restored. This is the only quarter of London remaining…