A Walk Through Covent Garden and Soho

The portico faces onto Covent Garden market - the central focus of the area, and the reason for its existence. This was originally a convent garden - the name was gradually altered by generations of Londoners - that provided fresh vegetables for the monks of Westminster Abbey. Although the monks disappeared with Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries in the 1530s, the market remained as a source of food for Londoners, more recently providing vegetables for the smart hotels and restaurants of the West End.

The area used to be owned by the Dukes of Bedford whose coat of arms can still be seen on the outside of the market buildings, the latter having now been converted into shops and wine bars. It was a Duke of Bedford who asked Inigo Jones, an architect but also a theatrical producer of sorts (he organised court entertainments, called masques), to build him a church. He specifically wanted a plain church - "a barn of a place, Jones," - and Inigo Jones was as good as his word, providing what he claimed to be the finest bam in Christendom!

The portico of the church is what interests us at this point, for we shall enter the inside of Inigo Jones' barn at the end of the tour. The portico is imposing without being ornate, and serves as a perfect backdrop for the street entertainers who are such a feature of today's Covent Garden, and whose ancestors, acting out mystery plays and religious stories, were the founders of modern European drama.

The portico has been used to famous effect as the setting for My Fair Lady, one of the longest running shows at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and, subsequently, a highly successful film starring Rex Harrison (reprising his stage performance) and Audrey Hepburn. It is in front of St Paul's portico that Stanley Holloway, due to be married in the morning, sings his famous request to "get me to the church on time".

Some three centuries before the film, the same portico was the scene of the first ever Punch and Judy show seen in England. The performance was recorded by no less a personage than Samuel Pepys, probably the most famous diarist in history, whose vivid evocations of Restoration London include many accounts of trips to the theatre, together with appreciative remarks on the charms of Nell Gwynn. An inscription (which makes a change from the inevitable blue plaque!) on the church wall records that Pepys saw the puppet show in 1662, and this was commemorated by the Society for Theatre Research and the British Puppet and Model Guild in 1962. There is still a regular Punch and Judy show in the market, but these days it is on the other side of the market. Despite the passage of three hundred years, the happy absorption on the faces of the watching children, and the nostalgic pleasure of their parents, is the same today as it has ever been.

Leaving the portico behind, walk past the appropriately named Punch and Judy pub, through the covered market, to Russell Street. Just before you reach each, look down into the basement courtyard of the Crusting Pipe, the quaintly named wine bar (part of the prestigious Davys group). In the courtyard, seated at the many tables, with a cold glass of white wine, visitors enjoy live music and opera from music students and professional musicians who are continuing Covent Garden's centuries- old traditions of street theatre.

On the left, as you walk down Russell Street, the Royal Opera House has torn down some attractive eighteenth century coffee houses, in order to extend the Opera House and to re-create Inigo Jones' original plans for the area. This has been a highly controversial project, and only time will tell whether this has been an act of vandalism or an enlightened improvement. On the right, opposite the new buildings, is the Theatre Museum.

Next: Theatre Museum