The Changing Face Of Seven Dials

As the first Fashion Feast takes place in Seven Dials, celebrating the neighbourhood’s bohemian spirit with pop-up stalls and gardens, there is now even more reason to visit.

- Emma Levine

When the influential MP Thomas Neale laid out the Seven Dials neighbourhood in the 1690s, it was cannily done with a series of star-shaped street patterns to maximise the amount of rental money he could get; as houses were charged per area of frontage, rather than interior.

He wanted a fashionable district to attract affluent residents, and created glorious street names such as Great Earl Street and Queen Street. He commissioned leading stonemason Edward Pierce to construct the Sundial Pillar, which was built as the centrepiece of the seven roads, radiating like spokes in a wheel. But in the years that followed, the area deteriorated and became a slum and a haven for mobs; even Pierce’s pillar was demolished in 1773.