The Seven Dials Trust continues to work to encourage the use of its Covent Garden Lantern™ throughout Covent Garden and beyond. The original scheme saw the installation of the Trust's bespoke façade-mounted lanterns from Shaftesbury Avenue down to Long Acre in 2014.
From the seventeenth century to the Second World War, street furniture, including litter bins, bollards, signs, lamps and paving, were considered decorative as well as functional fixtures. The 'carpeting, furnishing and lighting' of a street is as important to the character and use of an area as the interior design of any public building. The Trust believes that everything in the public realm should be attractive, durable, require little maintenance, have a design life appropriate to the area it adorns and, where possible, be based on historic precedent.
We are currently in the process of up-dating, amalgamating and expanding the three existing volumes of the Seven Dials Renaissance Study. This will be published as a website, making it accessible to a wider audience. Web designers Radford Wallis have been contracted to design and build the site.
The Seven Dials Renaissance Study is the the key document in the work of the Trust. It provides a detailed framework for the care and enhancement of the total environment of the Seven Dials area. An example of its influence and efficacy is that freeholders Shaftesbury PLC have invested more than £3 million implementing its recommendations for restoring façades.
The Trust's street name plates, installed in the summer of 2014, incorporate the Golden Hind symbol of the ancient parish of St Giles-in-the-Fields and feature the historic names of Seven Dials' streets. The project involved a great deal of attention to detail, walkabouts and a long ladder to measure each position before the signs could be ordered. They were manufactured...
Street improvements have been a partnership - initially between the Trust, Camden and the Kleinwort Benson Property Fund (KBPF) and latterly with Shaftesbury PLC, the area's major freeholder. Improvements to date have been based on the template set out in the Seven Dials Renaissance Study, which is intended to set high standards for street improvements where London has lagged behind many European cities. The work in Monmouth Street, using multi-coloured dressed setts has influenced works throughout the West End and elsewhere.
