Covent Garden District - A Guide

A guide to the Covent Garden district of London. This area is known as theatreland, and is where you’ll find performances of popular plays and musicals like Les Miserables, the Lion King, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and more! During the daytime it’s a great place for shopping, with Covent Garden Market open daily, with loads of stalls and boutiques shops offering beautiful gift items. It’s also one of the best places to stay in London, with superb accommodation options.

2021: A Harry Potter Photographic Exhibition comes to Covent Garden in 2021, showing at the London Film Museum.

Covent garden – theatre district

Covent Garden: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

Whether you’re into plays, musicals, opera or comedy, Covent Garden is pretty much synonymous with theatreland. The Royal Opera House is open during the day to the public, and for ticket holders during the evening. And you’ll find performances of popular works in this area, like Wicked at the Apollo Victoria Theatre, The Lion King at the Lyceum Theatre and Les Miserables at Queen Theatre.

Check out our Theatre Guide, for a full listing of what’s on during your visit.

Getting to Covent garden:

We’ll start this Covent District Guide at Leicester Square underground station, which runs on the Northern and Piccadilly lines. Look for signs for exit 1 onto Charing Cross Road.

charing cross road:

Charing Cross Road is famous for its bookshops, and for the ultimate and perhaps best bookshop in London – Foyles. This is a department store dedicated to books, with over 5 stories and 200,000 titles on display!

Continue along Charing Cross Road, take a right onto Shaftesbury Avenue and almost immediately a right again onto Earlham Street. On Monday to Friday from 10am to 4pm there’s a market along this little street, which sells flowers and second-hand clothes.

Seven dials:

Seven Dials, Covent Garden District

At the end of Earlham Street, you’ll reach a focus point of the Covent Garden district – Seven Dials. In total, six streets all converge on this central square, with a monument in the middle making up the seventh dial.

This marks the beginning of theatreland.

neal’s yard:

Neal’s Yard, Covent Garden District

Continue past Seven Dials and along Monmouth Street. As you walk along the street, you’ll notice lots of boutique shops and cafes on either side. Eventually, you’ll see a little alleyway on your right marked Neal’s Yard. Head through the alleyway and into a beautiful oasis (pictured above), where you’ll find the iconic Neal’s Yard Remedies Store, Neal’s Yard Dairy, and the really popular Wild Food Café.

Covent garden market:

Covent Garden Market

On exiting Neal’s Yard, take a left on Shorts Garden and a right onto Neal Street.

Neal Street is a long shopping street where you’ll find lots of high street brands like VANS and Doc Martens. From here, turn onto James Street past Covent Garden underground station and you’ll soon see the entrance to Covent Garden market, which is in fact a set of 3 different markets

Covent Garden Market is a great place to go gift shopping. Every Tuesday to Sunday, the Apple Market is filled with stalls offering jewelry, artwork and handmade goods. On the side of the market are beautiful shops selling everything from the finest teas at Whittard, to artisan chocolate at Le Jeune Chocolatiers.

The East Colonnade Market, open every day of the week, has stalls selling more everyday items like soaps, handbags, clothes and homeware, whilst The Jubilee Market, on the south plaza changes theme every day. On the weekends, you’ll find arts and crafts stores. On Monday, the market focuses on antiques, the rest of the week is a general market where you’ll find a mix of goods.

London transport museum:

London Transport Museum, Covent Garden

Located just on the edge of Covent Garden Market is the London Transport Museum. Step behind the scenes of the most famous transportation system in the world, in one of the best museums in London for kids. You’ll get to see an iconic horse-drawn omnibus, the first underground engine, a railway coach and much more!