Street features
Every Covent Garden Street has its own history, some more desirable than others.
Please select street below and meet some of Covent Garden’s characters over the years.
- Please choose a street from the below -
Garrick Street
Named in honour of the great actor David Garrick, Garrick Street was originally intended as a thoroughfare to facilitate access to Covent Garden market. As it stands today Garrick Street is occupied by fine eateries, boutiques and corporate professionalism. However the street has a fascinating and regenerative history.
David Garrick was born on 19 February 1717 in Hereford, he spent his boyhood in Lichfield, where, for a short while, he and his brother George attended the “select academy” run by Samuel Johnson. After riding to London at the age of 20, with 11/2 pence in his pocket, Garrick took a job as a wine merchant, but within five years he had become a darling of the stage, his debut performance having come in a pantomime called ‘Harlequin student’. Within ten years he had an interest in the ownership of Drury Lane Theatre and it was here that he met his German wife, Eva Maria Veigel, the then, incumbent principal dancer. By this time Garrick was well respected as an actor, or in the words of Alexander Pope: ‘that young man never had his equal as an actor, and he will never have a rival’ and, having led the early life of Lothario, Garrick became devoted to his wife, despite contemporaneous gossip which portrayed her as shrewish and pestersome. Garrick’s career was full and successful. He died wealthy and respected at the age of 62 and was survived by his wife by 43 years, (their union had been without progeny).
With the advent of viable rail connections the population of London soared, Covent Garden market became swamped with demand and given that the Hungerford market (which also handled fruit and vegetables) had been forced to cease trading to allow the construction of Charing Cross Station for passenger traffic, congestion in the area was unbearable. Without perhaps the panache of his father, Charles Dickens Jr bore witness to this era in his ‘Dictionary of London’: ‘Through the night the rumble of the heavy waggons seldom ceases, and before daylight the market is crowded. The very loading of these waggons is in itself a wonder, and the wall-like regularity with which cabbages, cauliflowers, turnips, are built up to a height of some 12ft. is nothing short of marvellous. By 6 o’clock the market is fairly open, and the din and bustle are surprising indeed. Gradually the large piles of vegetables melt away... After 8 o’clock [P.M.] the market becomes quiet. The great waggons have moved off; the debris of cabbage-leaves and other vegetable matter has been swept up, and Covent-garden assumes its everyday aspect. And a very pretty aspect it is.’
The traders’ and the area’s commercial practicality depended on facilities to enable the movement of their waggons, the narrow streets surrounding the Piazza were full to bursting of these wagons piled so high with produce to compensate for want of free manoeuvrability. This led to the construction and development of Garrick Street, which, being to the North-West of the markets largely bypassed pedestrian traffic. Garrick Street came into being in the 1860s and was principally a thoroughfare but soon became a desirable street for lodgings and businesses. It was also thought in lofty terms by stage professionals, the Garrick Club moved to its present home on Garrick Street in 1864.
The Garrick Club was founded by a select group of literary gentlemen, on the club’s inception they announced that ‘the Club was to be a place where actors and men of refinement and education might meet on equal terms, where patrons of the drama and its professors were to be brought together and where easy intercourse was to be promoted between artists and patrons.’
Attracted by the combination of the traditions of the Eighteenth Century literary society with the advantages of a well-run dining and social club, the first members of the Garrick were a sophisticated and cosmopolitan group that included twenty-four peers of the realm. The great artistic personalities of the Nineteenth Century were also drawn to the Garrick, and the four walls of the Club have been privy to quarrelsome debate between the foremost creative intellects for the last 170 years, notable amongst a remarkable list of old members are the authors: Charles Dickens, J. M. Barrie and Arthur Wing Pinero, the artists: Rossetti and Millais and the composer Edward Elgar. However not just any old Tom, Dick or Harry can join, (and certainly no Tomima, Dee or Harriet) the original assurance of the committee stated ‘that it would be better that ten unobjectionable men should be excluded than one terrible bore should be admitted’ this might or might not explain a recent case which stymied the application of TV personality Jeremy Paxman.
Today the Garrick Club has around 1,300 members including many of the most distinguished actors and men of letters in England which ensures that the lively atmosphere for which the club was so well-known in the Nineteenth Century continues to invigorate members of the club in the Twenty-first.
The club also possesses an encyclopædic theatrical library which includes manuscripts and documents, a valuable collection of play-texts and tens of thousands of playbills and theatre programmes. However, the greatest treasure of the Garrick Club is the collection of theatrical paintings and drawings, much the largest and most comprehensive in existence. The collection, which consists of 1,000 items, was started by the actor Charles Mathews in the early Nineteenth Century. His 400 paintings and drawings were given to the club in 1835 and the collection continues to grow. Today portraits of Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud hang alongside those of Henry Irving and David Garrick himself.
Although a new kid on the block when compared to some of Covent Garden’s streets which would have been trampled by the steeds of Dark age kings, Garrick Street certainly has its share of provenance and these days the Garrick Club acts as sentinel to the ever-changing nature of its neighbouring buildings.
