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.

On either side of what is now Short's Gardens lay the cultivated grounds of William Short, gardener of Grays Inn who, in 1590, purchased fields known as Newland between Drury Lane and the Marshland. The Short family were prominent parishioners of St Giles until Thomas Short sold the property around 1690 and it became part of Thomas Neale's Seven Dials development.

The western section of Earlham Street was for many years largely given over to food shops and those serving domestic needs. In the 1890s there were two butchers, three grocers, a pastry-cook, a dairy and an ironmonger. No. 14 still bears the advertising sign which proudly hails the first Fred Collins's invention of 'elastic glue'.

The infamous Roxy, showcase for punk music and host to all the major bands of the genre, was housed in the basement of a Neal Street warehouse for two eventful years.

Stephen Rimbault was one of the greatest clockmakers of the eighteenth century. Of Huguenot descent, he was based in Seven Dials between c.1744 and c.1770.

During the 18th century, Monmouth Street (formerly Gt St Andrew's Street) was home to many skilled Huguenot craftsmen, including eminent clockmakers but by the 19th century it was lined with down-at-heel shops, many selling birds, cats and dogs. 

A famous watchmaker noted for his highly accurate clocks and marine chronometers, Edward John Dent was awarded a royal warrant in 1841 and won the tender to make the clock now known as Big Ben. 

The British Lying-In Hospital was London's first dedicated maternity hospital. Midwifery pioneers and campaigners Zepherina Veitch and Dame Rosalind Paget trained there and went on to establish midwifery as a profession.

Sadly, very little remains of the original character of Mercer Street (formerly Gt and Little White Lion Streets). The Georgian shopfronts of the chimney sweep, wardrobe dealer, Mr Rocco's Shaving Salon and the bicycle shop have been swept away and only a group of three late 17th century three-storied brick houses remain in the section known locally as Lollipop Hill.

Seven Dials is the only quarter of London remaining from late Stuart England. Its star shaped layout is unaltered and many of the original houses remain, mostly refaced in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It was one of the many creations of an extraordinary man — Thomas Neale MP (1641-99) — ‘The Great Projector’. 

Briefly home to a free dispensary for poor children, set up by George Armstrong, a Scottish physician whose work initiated the scientific study of paediatrics. Having observed his own children he wrote an Essay on the Diseases most Fatal to Infants, which ran to many editions. He set up the world's first hospital for sick children.

Eccentric front-man of the phenomenally successful rock group Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett was the lead vocalist, guitarist and primary songwriter during the band's psychedelic years, providing major musical and stylistic direction in their early work, including their name.

Born into a Protestant gentry's family in Hungary, by 1684 Jacob Bogdani was working as a still-life painter in Amsterdam, In June 1688 he was in London, settling at Tower Street in the parish of St Giles in the Fields. Within a just a few years he was patronised by royalty and the leading aristocratic families in England.