Seven Dials around 1836.
Illustration:
Source: https://archive.org/stream/
Author: George Cruikshank (1792–1878).
(Wikimedia Commons)
Seven Dials is a road junction and neighbourhood in the St Giles district of the London Borough of Camden, within the greater Covent Garden area in the West End of London.
Seven streets of the Seven Dials area converge at the roughly circular central roundabout, at the centre of which is a column bearing six sundials – with the column itself acting as the seventh sundial.
The Seven Dials Trust owns and maintains the column and the sundials and looks after the public realm in collaboration with the local authorities, major land-owners, Historic England and other stakeholders.
The Seven Dials Trust owns and maintains the column and the sundials and looks after the public realm in collaboration with the local authorities, major land-owners, Historic England and other stakeholders.
Seven Dials, London.
Photo: 7 April 2009.
Source: geograph.org.uk
This File is licensed under the
Share Alike 2.0 Generic licence.
Attribution: Mike Quinn.
Author: Mike Quinn
(Wikimedia Commons)
A time plaque nearby helps visitors to deduce the time of the day fairly accurately.
In the Middle Ages, the area was owned by the Monastic hospital of Saint Giles which specialised in treating lepers, but it was expropriated by King Henry VIII in 1537 and later passed into private hands.[1]
In the 17th-Century, a local estate known as Cock and Pye Fields belonged to the Worshipful Company of Mercers, which, to maximise its income in the burgeoning West End, allowed building licences on what until then was open farmland near the developing metropolitan area.
The original layout of the Seven Dials area was designed by Thomas Neale during the Early-1690s. His plan had six roads converging, although this number was later increased to seven. The sundial column was built with only six faces, with the column itself acting as the gnomon of the seventh dial.
This layout was chosen to produce triangular plots, in order to minimise the frontage of houses to be built on the site, as rentals were charged per foot of frontage rather than by the square footage of properties.[2]
After the successful development of the Covent Garden Piazza area nearby, Neale hoped that Seven Dials would be popular with wealthy residents. This was not to be, and the status of the area gradually went down. At one stage, each of the seven apex buildings facing the column housed a pub.
After the successful development of the Covent Garden Piazza area nearby, Neale hoped that Seven Dials would be popular with wealthy residents. This was not to be, and the status of the area gradually went down. At one stage, each of the seven apex buildings facing the column housed a pub.
Dudley Street, Seven Dials, London.
Wellcome Images. Keywords: Central London,
19th-Century; Seven Dials; Slums; Poverty; Gustave Dore.
Date: 1872.
This file comes from Wellcome Images, a Web-Site operated by Wellcome Trust, a global charitable Foundation based in the United Kingdom. Refer to Wellcome blog post (archive).
Source/Photographer: https://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus
(Wikimedia Commons)
By the 19th-Century, Seven Dials was among the most notorious slums in London, as part of the slum of Saint Giles. The area was described by Charles Dickens in 1835:[3]
In his collection, Sketches by Boz, Dickens remarks,[2]
“The stranger who finds himself in the Dials for the first time . . . at the entrance of Seven obscure passages, uncertain which to take, will see enough around him to keep his curiosity awake for no inconsiderable time . . .”
The poet John Keats described the area as the last resort for the Poor and the Ill.[4]
“. . . where misery clings to misery for a little warmth, and want and disease lie down side-by-side, and groan together”.
The relatively low status of the location is also stated by W. S. Gilbert in the operetta “Iolanthe”:
“Hearts just as pure and fair,
May beat in Belgrave Square,
As in the lowly air of Seven Dials”.
The original sundial column was removed in 1773. It was long believed that it had been pulled down by an angry mob, but recent research suggests it was deliberately removed by the Paving Commissioners in an attempt to rid the area of “undesirables”.
The remains were acquired by architect James Paine, who kept them at his house in Addlestone, Surrey, from where they were bought in 1820 by public subscription and re-erected in nearby Weybridge as a memorial to Princess Frederica Charlotte of Prussia, Duchess of York and Albany.[5][6]
The badly-weathered dial stone was not re-installed on the monument and can be seen adjacent to Weybridge Library.[7]
Seven Dials. Showing ladies obtaining water from a
communal tap, with pet shop in foreground. Illustration for The Illustrated London News, 5 September 1874. General Collections Keywords: Public Health; Water Supply.
Artist: William Bazett Murray.
Date: 5 September 1874.
This file comes from Wellcome Images, a Web-Site operated by Wellcome Trust, a global charitable Foundation based in the United Kingdom. Refer to Wellcome blog post (archive).
Source/Photographer: https://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus
Author: The Illustrated London News.
(Wikimedia Commons)
By 1851, sewers were laid in the area, but poverty intensified in Saint Giles and in the Seven Dials, although the population began to decrease as workshops and breweries started occupying some of the houses.[9]
The model developed by Margaret Frere was established here to support Poor children in education; it was adopted throughout London for school social work.[10]
The seven streets at Seven Dials originally had quite different names from what they have now.
The seven streets at Seven Dials originally had quite different names from what they have now.
They were:
Great Earl Street;
Little Earl Street;
Great White Lion Street;
Little White Lion Street;
Great Saint Andrew’s Street;
Little Saint Andrew’s Street;
Queen Street.[11]
In the 1930s, their names were changed:
Great and Little Earl Streets became Earlham Street;
Great and Little White Lion Streets became part of an extended Mercer Street;
Great and Little Saint Andrew’s Streets became Monmouth Street;
Queen Street became Shorts Gardens.
Today, only two houses remain from the original Thomas Neale development of the 1690s:
61, Monmouth Street and 64, Neal Street.
According to Camden Council, the currently-defined area “can be found to the North-West of Covent Garden Market, and just to the South of Shaftesbury Avenue.
Brian Epstein “The Beatles” Manager and impresario
worked here, 1963-1964, at 13, Monmouth Street,
Seven Dials, London WC2H.
Photo: 3 September 2016.
Source: Own work.
This File is licensed under the
Share Alike 4.0 International licence.
Author: Spudgun67
(Wikimedia Commons)
“The Seven Dials comprise Earlham Street, Monmouth Street, Mercer Street and Shorts Gardens. The area now known as Seven Dials also includes Neal Street and Neals Yard.”[12]
Monmouth Street is the only street in Seven Dials to have an official numbered road; The B404. The others are unclassified.
During 1974, Seven Dials was named a Conservation Area with Outstanding Status[13] and during 1977 it was declared a Housing Action Area.
By 1984, the Housing Action Area Committee ensured that all of the vacant homes were in some use and were encouraging businesses to locate in the area.[14][15]
Old Clothes Shop, Seven Dials, London.
Date: 1877.
This File was donated to Wikimedia Commons
as part of a project with the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Collection: Cleveland Museum of Art.
File: John Thomson (Scottish, 1837-1921).
This File is made available under the
(Wikimedia Commons)
An increasing number of buildings have been restored over the years. Since 1974, over twenty-five per cent of the area’s buildings have been Listed.[16]
It was unveiled by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands in June 1989, on a visit to commemorate the tercentenary of the reign of William III and Mary II, during which time the area was developed.
The monument is owned by, and continues to be maintained by, The Seven Dials Trust whose mandate also includes improving the area, working with landowners as well as national and local agencies.[13][16]
In 1994, Sir Alan Bates established the Tristan Bates Theatre, an Off West End fringe theatre venue with a 100-seat capacity located at the Actors Centre on Tower Street.[18]
In 1994, Sir Alan Bates established the Tristan Bates Theatre, an Off West End fringe theatre venue with a 100-seat capacity located at the Actors Centre on Tower Street.[18]
Bates and his other son, Tristan’s surviving twin brother Benedick, dedicated this to his memory following his sudden 1990 asthma attack death.[19] It has since been refurbished and renamed the Seven Dials Playhouse.[20]
By Late-2017, investment company Shaftesbury plc owned an increasing number of the buildings, a “huge chunk” of the area, according to one news report.[21]
Despite some redevelopment, many original buildings remain. There are two historic plaques in the area, one at 13 Monmouth Street, where Brian Epstein managed his company[2] and another in Neal’s Yard, at the “Animation, Editing and Recording Studios of Monty Python”, actually the studios and offices of Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam from 1976 to 1987.[23]
Neale commissioned the architect and stone-mason Edward Pierce to design and construct a sundial pillar during 1693 – 1694. The original drawing in Brown ink with a Grey wash is in the British Museum collection.[24]
On top of an eight-foot (2.4m) tall plinth, there is a twenty-foot (6.1m) tall Doric column. The sculpture that contains the six sundials and the pinnacle is ten foot (3m) tall.
Neale commissioned the architect and stone-mason Edward Pierce to design and construct a sundial pillar during 1693 – 1694. The original drawing in Brown ink with a Grey wash is in the British Museum collection.[24]
On top of an eight-foot (2.4m) tall plinth, there is a twenty-foot (6.1m) tall Doric column. The sculpture that contains the six sundials and the pinnacle is ten foot (3m) tall.
This block is arranged with direct North- and South-facing vertical dials, and four vertically declining dials.
The monument was erected during 1694, but removed during 1773.[25] Reconstruction of the replica was launched by the Seven Dials Trust[26] during 1985 and erected during 1989.
It was the first project of its kind in London since the erection of Nelson's Column in the 1840s. The dials were designed, carved and gilded by Caroline Webb, while the astronomer Gordon Taylor verified the mathematics.
Each of the faces is accurate to within ten seconds.[25] The dials give local apparent solar time, so a correction must be made using the conversion graph displayed on the plinth to work out clock time.[25] Seven Dials is 0° 07' geographical degrees to the West of Greenwich – that is 3.048 seconds behind Greenwich Mean Time.
No comments:
Post a Comment