Seven Dials, view towards Monmouth Street, Shorts Gardens and Earlham Street. Note the competing clocks

The Seven Dials sundial pillar: Earlham Street and Mercer Street

Seven Dials is a small but well-known road junction in the West End of London near Covent Garden where seven streets converge. At the centre of the roughly-circular space is a pillar bearing six (not seven) sundials.

The term also refers informally to the immediate surrounding area.

[edit] History

The landed estate belongs to the Worshipful Company of Mercers which allowed building licences on what was open farmland to maximise their income in what was the burgeoning West End of the developing metropolitan area. The original layout of the Seven Dials area was designed by Thomas Neale in the early 1690s. The original plan had six roads converging, although this was later increased to seven. The sundial pillar was built with only six faces, however, probably because of the original design. This number of roads was chosen in order to maximise the number of houses that could be built on the site.

Following the successful development of the fashionable Covent Garden Piazza area nearby, Neale aimed for the Seven Dials site to be popular with well-off residents. This was not to be, however, and the area gradually deteriorated. At one stage, each of the seven apexes facing the column housed a pub. By the nineteenth century, Seven Dials had become one of the most notorious slums in London, being part of the rookery of St Giles. The area was described colourfully by Charles Dickens in his collection Sketches by Boz, which includes the quote:

The relatively down-market status of this location is also epitomised by W S Gilbert in these lines from 'Iolanthe':

Hearts just as pure and fair

May beat in Belgrave Square

As in the lowly air of Seven Dials.

It was still a byword for urban poverty in the early-twentieth century, when Agatha Christie set The Seven Dials Mystery (1929) there.

The original sundial column was removed in 1773. It had been believed that this was due to being pulled down by an angry mob, although recent research suggests that 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. In 1820, the remains were purchased by public subscription and re-erected in nearby Weybridge, as a memorial to the Princess Frederica, Duchess of York.

[edit] Seven Dials today

Today, Seven Dials is a prosperous, largely-commercial, neighbourhood, between the West End theatre district and the fashion-focused shopping district in and around nearby Neal Street. Inevitably, the junction of seven roads means the space is dominated by traffic, generally slow-moving in these narrow streets, usually crowded with people. Gentrification has not wiped-out all of the urban poverty: street homelessness and drug addiction are still present in the area.^{[citation needed]}

One of the seven apexes of the famous junction itself boasts a pub: The Crown at Seven Dials; another features the Cambridge Theatre. Despite some redevelopment, many of the original buildings remain. Another famous bar called The Box which opened only in 1995 is also present just off Monmouth Street, where in the summertime many people spill out onto the street.^[1]

The replacement sundial column seen today was constructed in 1988 and 1989, to the original design. It was unveiled by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, during her visit to commemorate the tercentenary of the reign of William and Mary, during which the area was developed. Popular tradition as to why the pillar has only six dials is that the seventh sundial is formed by the pillar itself casting its shadow on the ground.

[edit] External links

• Information about the Seven Dials shopping area
• The Seven Dials Monument Charity

Coordinates: 51°30′49″N 0°07′37″W / 51.51361°N 0.12694°W / 51.51361; -0.12694

[edit] References