Covent Garden’s handsome market building replaced a crowded open-air food market with a more regulated civic space. The piazza’s history runs from an abbey garden and seventeenth-century traders to a major nineteenth-century market, then a threatened redevelopment that was stopped by local campaigning.
Guide preview
The orderly market building at Covent Garden grew out of a much less orderly trading scene. A market was recorded here in 1654, and after the Great Fire of 1666 the square became devoted to selling fruit and vegetables.
Unlock the full guide with a travel pass.
Quick facts
- A market was recorded at Covent Garden in 1654.
- Charles Fowler designed the market building developed from 1828.
- The site reopened after renovation in 1980.
More places in London
10 Downing Street
Number 10 Downing Street is a Georgian townhouse that has served as the official residence of the Prime Minister since 1735. Its familiar black door is set within a narrow terrace on a street named for diplomat Sir George Downing, where the visible domestic scale belies the building’s public role.
Barbican Centre
The Barbican Centre is the cultural heart of a larger postwar estate, where elevated walkways, concrete towers, gardens, and water create a city within the City. Opened in 1982, it combines arts venues with residential and civic spaces.
Barbican Conservatory
The Barbican Conservatory places dense planting inside the Barbican’s concrete architecture. Planted in 1980–81 and opened in 1984, it connects modernist building design with horticulture, using glass, structure, and a varied collection of plants to create an indoor landscape.
Battersea Power Station
Battersea Power Station’s four chimneys and monumental brick halls preserve the silhouette of London’s electricity age. Closed in 1983, the Grade II* listed station has been adapted as a public destination while retaining its industrial structure.
Big Ben
The Elizabeth Tower rises beside the Palace of Westminster, making parliamentary time visible across London. “Big Ben” is the Great Bell inside, not the tower itself. Its four immense dials and Victorian mechanism combine civic ritual with ingenious clock engineering.
Borough Market
Borough Market’s present lanes sit beside a railway viaduct that helped turn it into a major wholesale hub. A market near London Bridge has roots reaching back about a thousand years; its modern identity reflects changing transport, food supply, and a later shift toward retail trading.