Seven Dials Covent Garden is a unique quarter of London whose star-shaped layout remains as constructed in the early 1690s. It was brought back to life largely through the dedication of the Seven Dials Trust, working in partnership with the local authorities and landowners for nearly forty years.

The Trust was commissioned by the Mercers’ Company to provide façade brackets for their festoon lighting in Neal Street. These elegant wall brackets are a smaller version of the wall brackets designed by trustee Paul Draper for our façade lanterns and thus match them.

The Trust was commissioned by the Mercers’ Company to provide the Covent Garden Lantern © for their new Mercers’ Walk development with a specially designed wall bracket. These lanterns have our specially designed Zeta LED within a ‘sugar bowl’ thus harnessing both current and 19c technology to maximise the light spread and reducing both carbon emissions and energy needs.

Camden have retrofitted the 51 Phase One lanterns in Seven Dials with our specially designed Zeta LED within a ‘sugar bowl’ thus harnessing both current and 19c technology to maximise the light spread and greatly reducing both carbon emissions and energy needs. Many thanks to Shaftesbury Plc for funding this project.

The Trust was very sad to learn that Colin Smith, past MD of Comyn Ching has passed away. Comyn Ching were the oldest company in Seven Dials, established in 1700, and one of the country’s foremost architectural ironmongery companies.

For many years Paul and his partner, the artist Emanuele Gori, have spent part of the summer in Tropea in southern Italy. Tropea is built on a rock formation of cliffs with many buildings dating back centuries. Paul has been given the Freedom of the Municipality of Tropea for his extraordinary drawing.

After a long delay due to the Pandemic we have installed the latest  sponsored People’s Plaques. Further information will follow when various delayed unveilings take place. If you are interested in sponsoring, or know someone who may be interested in sponsoring a plaque have a look at our brochure: Download the People’s Plaques Project Brochure.

The Trust has worked with Camden, Shaftesbury Plc and the Covent Garden Community Association on major improvements to the end of Shaftesbury Avenue where it meets Neal Street. This is one of the key gateways into Seven Dials.

This Xmas we have very attractive lights sponsored by Shaftesbury Plc and worth having a look at.

The Trustees were very sad indeed to learn that Gordon Taylor has passed away at the age of 95. Gordon was our astronomer when we planned the reconstruction of the Sundial Pillar at Seven Dials and his work involved the detailed calculations for the dial faces and orientation of the Pillar which can be seen on our Orientating for Sundial Time page.

The Seven Dials Trust is complying with government advice and all our projects requiring in-person contact are currently on hold.

In the meantime, we continue to work on those things which can be done in isolation, including the Seven Dials Renaissance Study and our company website.

We were deeply saddened to hear of the death of Trust Patron Frank Dobson. Frank was a great supporter of the Trust and our work over many years. His wit and many words of advice will be missed by us all.

Trust chairman David Bieda says: “We were close friends for almost 50 years, and I shall miss his friendship, wit and wide-ranging knowledge.”