can i help it if i fall in love with you can i help it here tally ho jules guides here in which i wander around london and tell you fascinating facts don't forget to hit the subscribe button if you like these videos and um today we're back in covent garden again because i've been invited this time by the covent garden trust to make a video all about how they protect the historical aspects of the buildings from private enterprise so we're going to start here and we're going to wander all the way around the area down the road back into here and uh anyway you'll see let's go do you want me to turn away come back again someday if you don't mind i think i'd rather stay around now common garden comes from convent garden because this is basically back in the 15th century this is where like the monks of westminster abbey used to grow their vegetables around it but then of course king henry viii came along and he uh knocked down all the monasteries and everything and this whole area fell into the hands of the earl of bedford that's why you'll probably see a lot of road names like bedford street and russell street because the earls of bedford were from the russell family anyway in 1631 the earl of bedford commissioned indigo jones who's like this famous architect to build a square here is for wealthy aristocrats and stuff to live here in fact it was the first commercial living development outside of the city of london and of course indigo jones had just been to italy so he loved all these italian styles and it was in fact the first piatt of its type in england and look this is the oldest house in in covent garden uh this is a russell house built in 1716. this is where in the 60s the middle earth club was you know that footage of david bowie as a puro he was he was in something called puro in turquoise before he was famous it was all that weird mime he was doing lindsey kemp they say that in exchange for sexual favors he gave him a part in his bureau and turquoise show and and that's where it took place pink floyd the who t-rex played there and he was actually in here that tony visconti first saw mark bowlen from t-rex so he made him into a star and then it was through that that he then got introduced to david bowie so we got this place to thank for the heroes album i suppose there's also where select modeling agency used to be when i was working at hamley's over there i used to squirt all the models with my water pistol it actually got me the sack from the shop in the end but you know how my taught my job was toy demonstrator how are you supposed to demonstrate a water pistol that's good at people anyway hello matthew fagonini if you're watching i'm peter scott the chair of the covent garden area trust it was set up really to provide a sort of safeguard against the risk that uh the market building might be demolished which originally had been the plan so this main bit of the market was built in 1830 before there was just a big open square gradually the whole area became a fruit and veg market immortalized in george bernard shaw's pygmalion that's my fair lady to you and me and in 1974 they all became bit too congested around here so they moved down to nine elms they wanted to build a massive dual carriage motorway from trafalgar square all the way through here knock all this stuff down and it was going to go all the way through to holmen or something but thankfully there was a big outcry by local people and i think that's how the trust eventually came about the idea was to create a helicopter port hotel and entertainment complex conference centers and so on at that time it was largely thanks to a local campaign run by local people residents who persuaded the government to save the buildings list them and stop the plans for redevelopment otherwise we wouldn't have the special place we see today there was a time when i would cry nice for you i never lie awake until the morning from about 1920 to 1980 this used to be the great britain communist party headquarters there was one occasion when they did a raid there early on was it the 50s the police occupied a house next door and they went down they dug through and then they came up underneath the stage and then the communists they sensed that the police were underneath there so they called the police and so the other police came along and they ended up arresting the plain clothes police who were underneath the floor this fella called peter wright who was from the mi5 he devised a bugging device a fake door for the coal shoot which is there and it would be too obvious if they installed it in broad daylight so they all had to dress up as drunken hooligans they all went along with their wives all like walking down the road okay and then they all saw they one of their wives sort of fell over over there whilst they all started laughing and getting drunk in the kerfuffle and the melee he whipped out his fake door which had a bug in it and he put it there and that's how they bugged the um the communist party here we go catalogs as well you can see from here the garrett club over there that's the one that's in the news lately because sherry blair is going to court on behalf of women because they won't allow women in there it's an actor's club it started up in the old days when actors weren't allowed into all the other posh gentlemen's clubs but you know who was a member there was a. a milne you know who wrote winnie the pooh and when he died he left a lot of his estate to the garrett club and so when disney wanted to use the image of winnie the pooh they ended up having to pay like something like i don't know 40 million pounds of some crazy amount of money to the garrett club for the right to use winnie the pooh that's why they're one of the richest clubs in the whole of the west end we're in bedford street now by the way named after the earl of bedford and that that's where van gogh used to work he had a job in there but then he had a very bad temper he was very irratible so um so they packed him off back to back to paris it's not very much to look at now is it i mean i i suppose it must have looked a bit different but right opposite number 25 is the main entrance to saint paul's church if you don't it's called the actors church because it has an association with uh with actors and inside they've got loads of memorials to people like charlie chaplin noel coward thomas ahn who wrote rule britannia when first has that heavens come on a rosa rosa rose out of the ass but um the most important one of course simon is john thor [Music] the sweeney come on i love it how it always used to end really suddenly anyway the church was consecrated in 1638 so strictly speaking the entrance of the church is on the wrong side because um they wanted to have the entrance on the piazza that would have made sense but they insist on having the altar on this traditional position which is at the eastern end of the church i think that's why the door around the other side is actually sealed up otherwise you'll be walking straight through into the altar pretty much the oldest building in covent garden it's still still standing but yeah this would have been a graveyard there's still dead bodies underneath the ground here these are watchmen's huts you know the night watchman before we had police we had these night watchmen and then and guys it's got a look it's got a window either side of it this is probably a replica actually but um i don't know if it's original but it would have a window either side so that you could spot the guys coming in you've got these resurrection men who used to come and climb over the gate and dig up the dead bodies which are all buried in here and then sell them for i don't know medical experiments and what have you [Music] i've been through this all [Music] very nice in there it's not just a pizzeria by the way it's got loads of other stuff but pizza isn't even the main thing they do very good place to brunch [Music] and then flat iron if you like steaks that's an excellent place to go to stay i don't think jane austen went for any but she used to live here look jane austen just further along here at number four now that used to be the royal air force recruitment center a lawrence of arabia who was quite a big star after the first world war he came here and tried to join up in 1922 under the name of john ross but the fellow who wrote the biggles books his name was captain john's he turned him away and so lawrence of arabia came back a few hours later with a messenger from the air ministry and he said don't you know who this is get him into the force at once or you'll get your bowler hat i suppose that must mean i wonder if it's actually like in mary poppins where he takes his bowler hat you know at the end and he punches through it and he turns his umbrella inside out no not that my name is dr philistine i've been performing in covent garden uh for like about 24 years captain franco franco with a k not like the spanish dictator like a friendly entertainer i do a flea circus i got one of britain's only flea services comedy trousers i haven't got changed yet what are you talking about that's missing my street clothes how does it work here then we arrive on a morning on the west piata and there's a lottery and when whoever comes out first every day gets the option of the first slot it's an art form in itself it's about the movement of people and the thinking of people and how to attract people's attention how to sustain feel that it's great that there's a trust here um especially when you bring into considerations things like what's happening in the north hall one of the busking pictures here which say a restaurant would like to use it to put tables in and take over that space which was originally dedicated as a street performing space and it's also a cold weather and a rain pitch and works very well in winter and i know the trust will be an obstacle to those short-term commercial interests [Music] perhaps the most interesting of these historic signs is here the set of rules that only date back to 1924 in this case no person shall throw any root vegetable fruit scone or other missile and of course many of these rules because they were by act of parliament remain unrepealed today and i'm not convinced that it was ever formally repealed in the house of commons strictly speaking i cannot chuck a scone that's simon what are you gonna do about it can't you see that i had beside without what you do and i don't mind telling you just how i feel this is amazing i've never been in here before can you believe it it's superb yeah we're standing in the heart of the london transport museum so this is the best place to come for london buses and tubes and a whole plethora of other items in our collection so you start at the very top in sort of victorian london which tells you the story of things like the very first omnibus service in 1829 and then you come down to the floor below which tells you the story of the early underground so the very first use of steam on the london underground from 1863 hello ladies it is amazing how they've got this entire steam locomotive up here on another floor of the museum i don't know how they would have done it took it in the list see i remember when these ones used to come into the station i'd be waiting on the platform for the old gray ones in the 80s and every now and again occasionally they'd send one of these through it it was so nice it's got the other part of the line then and that's all changed yeah a lot of the uh a lot of the stops that don't exist anymore so this used to be the flower market of the original covent garden so you can actually see the lovely raw iron arches and the kind of really high ceilings and stuff and kind of imagine this as being a scene where people were buying and selling flowers that were coming daily to the market my old man wore three piece whistles said he smoked too many cigs drove a bus for london transport hey cash what's an oyster car they have to get off then you have to go and charge it up are you joking well you can use your contactless taxi out of the way it's been sitting there get out of the road i'm on a tight schedule don't you know we've got a hidden london exhibition which is really exploring disused stations on the underground network so and to give you a sense of the history of some of those spaces when you are ready to leave close the doors by pressing the closed door button [Music] ladies and gentlemen we apologize for the delay to your service i've been through this all before you're gone for me now [Music] [Applause] can you see that i will see through you look who it is it's janine who does the covent garden magazine i started this magazine and it's six years old and we celebrate covent garden the history the culture the people the community because i live in covent garden i've been living in covent garden for 12 years okay show us the map at the back then this is nice so you can do a little walk of common garden around here a legend here telling you what's uh what each person represents you can buy it online at thecoventgardener.
com so for example we have the donkey plaque no you've seen it you've never seen that it's so beautiful we had a hundred thousand costa manga donkeys working cost among the donkey in the common garden 1661 to 1974. unless it's a remarkable amount of times i didn't realize over there i don't know what that is that looks like stinging nettles but they're beautiful me so so there's one guy in charge of all these barriers he's done a very good job he's done it and he's young there's a residence barrow around the corner any resident is allowed to take the the mint and the tomatoes i bet he didn't know that but only only residents tomatoes and but it mustn't let reese see you reese is the the gardener [Music] excellent terry sinclair there he is i mean you came here in 1984 when you first 82 82 82 yeah i rolled up sat outside the church with my guitar thinking i can do that it shows that even a lowly busker like terry can end up being on the trust i only became a member of the trust because i was interested in history and i was trying songs about covent garden about not just about as it is now or fruit and veg but about the vice and prostitutes and brothels oh now that's something now we're getting into jules guides territory the place is london to me you know this place used to be full of banyos brothels coffee houses poets spaniels were like turkish baths but a lot of other stuff went on in there as well well this was probably the most notorious banyo in comic-con it was a hotel for 200 years or more but you could pick up your young lady outside tom king's coffee house on the west piazza in front of the church and spend the night with them here at hundreds it's the one that's also in a hogarth that's it it's a shack in front of the church that's right yeah and in the corner over here there used to be the shakespeare's head tavern and that's where the sandwich was invented because john montagu who was i believe the fourth earl of sandwich he was there gambling at the beefsteak club which was upstairs and uh someone said what do you want sandwich and he said two pieces of bread with some meat in between it so when everyone else was ordering they just said uh well just bring me what sandwich is having a couple of rounds of sandwiches the headwaiter was a guy called jack harris jack harris was a pimp and there was a book called harris's list of covent garden ladies which was published about 40 years for two shillings you could uh purchase a list of uh all the ladies of covent gardens sexual preferences what they're prepared to do mary holland for example tall graceful comely and shy of favors but could be modified for the cost of 20 pounds her sister on the other hand was indifferent to money but a supper and two guineas would tempt her other publications included the wandering [ __ ] available from 1660 to 1661 miss noble plow court fetter lane she is a really fine girl with a lovely fair complexion she has a most consummate skill in reviving the dead and her tongue has a double charm feels like a julian clary wrote this book doesn't it it's like loads of double entendres jack harry did three years in prison for obscenity for running the harris's list of coffee garden ladies basically and when he came out he became the manager of his arch rival of a pub here called the rose tavern another notorious place full of prostitutes lighting cigarettes from their vaginas and all stuff is that right that's true i think they used to light vegetables and samuel peeps came here in 1665 he said we drank a lot of wine and i gave her 12 shillings i touched her thing but did nothing else although at another time and place i believe i could do whatever i want with her what a boaster i know people like that there is some place by hogarth and the third one in rake's progress uh so scene in the upstairs room of the rose tavern where there is um the paul rake on his back there and he's drunk and there's all these girls and they're pinching his watch and goodness knows what his money is stealing his stuff oh yes maybe what he deserved [Music] [Applause] when it's open the opera house they've got a cafe in there and you can just go up and sit in the terrace and have a coffee and just look out over the market a lot of people don't realize that it's very nice [Music] [Applause] [Music] this is the covent garden opera house and around the time that they were built to the theatre royal they also built the covent garden theater which was here it was after oliver cromwell had sort of banned theaters during the restoration these were the first two licensed theaters to open up and many famous performers have appeared on its stage like uh margot fontaine nurev pavarotti first piano performance here was in 1767. grimaldi the famous clown first made his name here he's the one who more or less invented the traditional clown makeup originally the royal opera house opened in 1732 as a theater royal for the first 100 years they had exclusive rights on spoken word drama along with the the other theatre royal and drury lane i don't know we make we maintain we safeguard and we procure and alter anything to do with weaponry we do it all right here is this a dagger i see before me so these are the romeo and juliet and that will be attached to a blade for every sword we normally have a scabbard a belt for every firearm we normally have some sort of holster and because our runs are so long you can get a show that exists here for 40 years much of that 40 years as you can have the same item that lasts and lasts well the less materials you have to buy to remake so with our stage weaponry they'll either be a very high quality replica make or there'll be originals that have been deactivated so they're safe to use and it's where we do a lot of our firearms testing out here as well ballistics we actually make up the rounds here ourselves and it looks like a 45 to me that's a 38 38 okay yeah when someone fires a gun on the stage they're actually the noise is coming from the gun it's not coming from a sound effect stage if we can't get the noise levels right on station to fire we'll be in the side stage but also with a fire because it should be i tell you what yeah i mean and people are wielding these off so i'm not doing this on purpose that's just that's the easiest way to hold it it's heavy bloody heavy isn't it but this is why it's so important that they have it in the rehearsal so they can get used to it and they can sing what they need to sing all i had to do was string this on stage put it under tension truly under tension load it with this truly load it point it in the general direction of a small child with an apple above the head fire it bolt had to disappear and it had to be physically impossible mechanistically impossible for that bolt to go anywhere near that child into the sleeve settling ready to go arms and then i'm gonna fire this now okay oh and it's just completely disappeared shotguns what like guns that fire shot though that's actually got a flink flint mechanism rather than a pressure mechanism so that'd be pre-1840s the production values at the royal opera house are definitely higher than jules guides we would have just headed down to the local fancy dress shop and picked up one of those for about five [Music] first piano performance in 1767 handled his first operas here and of course it's the home of the royal ballet the queen's even got her own special box and he's got his own special toilet there as well which she could use do not sit on or move this chair i guess that's the chair where one sits to be seen i wonder how much it costs to rent a box next to it wretched arm look the royal lavatory presumably in store for queen victoria i guess your ordinary punters probably wouldn't have had these sorts of luxuries so going to the theater must have been quite a tricky experience for them you've got such a lovely cafe up here it's a really nice terrace up here you just bought my coffee and come up and get this amazing view yeah you got nelson's column over there you can see nelson's column from here i mean that's beautiful that looks like it was built as the floral hall to sell exotic flowers from around the world and it was in direct competition with covent garden market but it was like a white elephant they never sold anything so basically they used to try and put concerts on in there that flopped so for hundreds of years it was just used as storage and it fell into disrepair they had a fire part of that's been removed now and taken to borough market and uh so borough market is made out of part of this stuff and it's basically the same sort of materials that the great exhibition of 1851 that's what the crystal palace would have looked around all over the country when you're having your cucumber sandwiches and salmon during the interval you can go in there it's lovely they've done a great job of that [Music] for all my friends have settled down this is beau street magistrates court well it used to be bow street's magic state call they turn it into a hotel and a bar now this is sort of where the police force first started up so i was saying about how we didn't have any police in those days you just have to shout stop thief and people would run after you but one of the magistrates here was henry fielding famous author and he came up with the idea of the bose street runners well they started out as six blokes catching criminals and making well citizens arrests i suppose and that continued until around 1829 when robert peale came up with the idea for actual metropolitan police force and that's why we call the police bobbies because they're named after sir robert and bobby is short for robert anyway henry fielding was succeeded by his brother who was blind john blindbeak fielding who could identify 3 000 criminals just by the sounds of their voices he was the one who tried casanova when giacomo casanova was tried here and he let him off as well it's amazing you can actually go inside and they've got the very courtroom where people like oscar wilde stood in the dark that's where he would have stood somewhere over there cripping the craze yeah that's extraordinary [Music] you've got really nice restaurant here too but they only let me film on my phone so i can't quite see it in all its glory [Music] this is a theater royal jewelry lane this is a actually built in 1663 not this version of it was a bit smaller before it's the oldest theater in london well that's still operating i suppose and this is the one where john dryden used to write plays featuring nel guin and nel guin was of course the famous mistress of king charles ii and they say there used to be a tunnel that went underneath the road from the theater to the tavern opposite where he could go and have these illicit meetings with her after the shows first place so they sang god save the king in there actually 1745.
