Covent Garden

Covent Garden, corrupted from Convent Garden, from having been originally the garden of the Abbot of Westminster, is a spacious square in London, celebrated for a great market held within it of fruit, vegetables, and flowers. The square was formed about 1631 from the designs of Inigo Jones, and has the arcade or piazza on the north and north-east side, Tavistock Row on the south, and the church of St Paul's on the west. In the 17th century Covent Garden was a very fashionable quarter of the town. The scene of one of Dryden's plays is laid here, and frequent allusions are made to the place in plays of Charles II.'s time. The market, now so famous, appears to have originated about 1656 in a few wooden sheds and stalls. Covent Garden is for a stranger one of the sights of London, and is seen to greatest advantage about three o'clock on a summer morning; Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday being the principal days.