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.

In the latter part of last year, Camden published draft proposals for works to Neal Street, Earlham Street (W) and Monmouth Street and invited responses from the public. This consultation ended on 16th December but the proposals can still be seen here. The Trust is concerned by several aspects of the proposals.

For several years now, the Trust has been working on updating its comprehensive study of the area, The Seven Dials Renaissance Study, first published in 1991. Designed to provide a national exemplar of how to care for inner city conservation areas, the study takes an holistic approach, providing a detailed framework for the total environment.

We were deeply saddened to hear of the death of our Founder Trustee and later Trust Patron Christina Smith OBE who passed away peacefully at home in Covent Garden on 11th March 2022. Christina was a proactive member of the Trust and our work over many years. Her presence and many words of wisdom will be missed by us all.

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.

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.

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.

The Trust has created a new exhibition titled 'Seven Dials Renaissance 1971–2019' to celebrate the conservation & regeneration of Seven Dials and Covent Garden since 1971.