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.

A masterly translator of Virgil, John Dryden was also a brilliant versifier, a discerning critic and a savage satirist. He has been called 'the literary dictator of his age' and the first master of modern English prose. 

William Hazlitt was probably the first Englishman to make a living as a professional critic. A parliamentary reporter and a freelance lecturer, he is best remembered as an essayist.

John Jacob Holtzapffel was the most famous producer and seller of luxury ornamental turning lathes. Priced at many times the annual wage of an ordinary worker, they were much sought after by wealthy amateurs: clergy, aristocrats and heads of state.  

Lionel Lukin, a fashionable London coach builder had a taste for science and a fertile mechanical mind. Among his many inventions was an 'unsubmergible' boat, the first lifeboat. 

Architectural draughtsman Thomas Malton the Younger was hailed by J.M.W. Turner, who studied drawing under him, as 'my real master'. 

Born in the Black Horse Inn on Long Acre, Thomas Stothard RA was one of the foremost history painters of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He is also remembered as the most prolific book illustrator of the time.