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.

Earlham Street had a thriving street market until the early twentieth century. Markets began in Seven Dials in the early nineteenth century and were famously documented in Dickens' Sketches by Boz (1836). As with many London street markets, they served a densely populated, low income area.