Covent Garden

Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern edge of the West End, between St. Martin 's Lane and Drury Lane, who is primarily known for the Royal Opera House in the north, but is also associated with the former fruit and vegetable market, now but moved to Nine Elms. Covent Garden is a popular shopping and tourist attraction. The district is divided north through the main thoroughfare of Long Acre, the independent shops (centered on Neal 's Yard and Seven Dials ) was passed. Often with ' Covent Garden' even originally built for the market outdoor area with its covered market ( Central Market ) denotes that actually ' Covent Garden Piazza ' means.

History

Even from the Roman period a settlement core is detected as part of the then Londinium. The name Covent Garden was the district in London during the reign of King John Lackland 1199-1256, then a 40 acre ( 160,000 m² ) piece of land in the county of Middlesex, west and east bounded by the present-day streets of St. Martin 's Lane and Drury Lane, in the north and the south by the Floral Street and a line between Chandos Place, along Maiden Lane and Exeter Street to Aldwych.

In the rectangle, the Abbey and the convent of St Peter at Westminster entertained throughout the Middle Ages, a garden to meet their daily food needs. During the next three centuries the convent garden ( Covent Garden ) was an ever more important source of fruits and vegetables for London. The garden was managed by a succession of managers on behalf of the Abbot of Westminster. This type of award probably led to ownership disputes with the Crown, the 1540 Henry VIII broke with a brush stroke: He withdrew during the Reformation, the monasteries of their possessions in his favor.

A part of the country, he said, John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford to. In fulfillment of the last wish of his father, King Edward VI. the remaining part of Covent Garden in 1547 to his uncle Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset. This was south of there The beach from 1549 Somerset House building.

As Seymour was beheaded for treason in 1552, the country went into royal possession and four months later, as a reward to the person who was responsible for the case Seymours. 40 acres, known as le Covent Garden and the long acre went by royal decree permanently in the possession of the Earl of Bedford.

Today's Covent Garden is rooted in the early 17th century, when the country (the Convent 's Garden ) by Francis Russell, 4th Earl of Bedford, was newly developed. In which order should Inigo Jones, the most important English architect of the Renaissance, creating an elegant residential area. Inspired by the great piazzas of Rome, Livorno and other Italian cities, he designed a large public square in the center of Covent Garden.

The area quickly became one of the most important places of the market traders and after the Great Fire of London in 1666, which had destroyed many competing markets in the eastern urban area, the market in Covent Garden, the most important of the country. Exotic goods from around the world were up the Thames managed by boats to the market and sold there.

The first mention of a Punch -and- Judy show, a typical British puppetry, noted author Samuel Pepys in May 1662 at his diary. It was not until 1830, the market halls were built as a throwback to the Roman Baths in Bath found to facilitate an ongoing market operation regardless of the weather.

In the late 1960s the congestion had in the small streets around the market reached such an extent that a market operation became uneconomic - the necessary large amounts of to donating goods were a major reason for the traffic problems. The whole area was part of a comprehensive redevelopment plan and after a public outcry in 1973 received dozens of buildings around Piazza monument status, so as to prevent further changes. 1974 emigrated to the final market to a new place, the so-called New Covent Garden Market, three miles south-west at Nine Elms. The area languished until 1980, the halls were opened as a shopping center and tourist attraction. Also on the square there is the London Transport Museum.

The marketplace and the Royal Opera House were in George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion ( the later also the material for the musical " My Fair Lady" bot) brought in a remarkable way in connection: When Professor Higgins was waiting for a horse-drawn carriage that distinguish it from the should bring opera home, he was on Eliza Doolittle, which, loudly flowers offered on the market in the worst Cockney dialect for sale.