Things you MUST NOT DO in Covent Garden
Thou shalt not toss parsnips.
Welcome to Londonist: Time Machine’s Friday edition for paying subscribers, with a chunky teaser for everyone else.
Are you a stickler for the rules? If so, read today’s newsletter carefully, because you could be in breach of Covent Garden’s ancient and unusual byelaws. That’s for the main story below.
First, I’d like to thank everybody who came along on our site visit to Temple Bar yesterday. What a fantastic place! I’ll have a write-up for next Friday’s newsletter. More site visits for paying subscribers coming soon!
History Radar
Upcoming events for fans of London history.
👗 DRESS CODES: The written and unwritten rules of dressing at the royal court are explored in Dress Codes at Kensington Palace, which showcases a rare survival of Queen Elizabeth II's childhood clothes, debutante dresses, court suits and clothing worn by members of the Royal Family such as Princess Margaret and Diana, Princess of Wales. It opens on 13 March and runs through till 30 November.
💥 HITLER'S VENGEANCE: 80 years since the end of the aerial bombardment of London during the Second World War, watch an illustrated talk about the period's new missiles known as "vengeance weapons" and how Londoners attempted to defeat them. Watch in person at the London Archives, or online on 13 March. The talk ties in with the current Blitz exhibition at the venue.
✍️ KEATS AFTER HOURS: Keats House in Hampstead holds a late opening on 13 March, giving you the chance to explore the former home of poet John Keats after dark. Take a tour led by a volunteer, and view the current Hidden Histories of Keats House exhibition.
🛫 CROYDON AIRPORT: Also on 13 March, Londonista Will Noble does an online talk for the Art Deco Society: When Croydon Was the Centre of the Universe recalls the halcyon days of Croydon Airport during the 1920s and 30s, when the wealthy used it as a global gateway, and others visited Croydon for plane (and Hollywood star) spotting.
👮🏼 CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE: On 14 March, the Bow Street Police Museum team offers a guided tour around Covent Garden focusing on the history of protests in the local area. Hear about discontented theatre-goers and suffragettes demanding votes for women, and find out when a protest becomes a riot in the eyes of law enforcement.
🤔 LET ME QUIZ YOU: I’m hosting a pub quiz. And not just any old pub quiz. It’s the London Historians Big Pub Quiz 2025. I’ll be setting 50 fiendish questions about the history of London. Lots of prizes to be won, including the annual trophy, inscribed with the names of previous winners. The action takes place in the basement of the Christopher Hatton pub in Holborn on Wed 21 May, but sign up soon as places usually sell out fast.
🚃 TRAM POSTERS: A reminder that the London Archives in Clerkenwell currently has a charming and free exhibition of 40 vintage London tram posters dating from the 1920s-30s. They promoted heritage attractions like the British Museum; days out such as Hampstead Heath; sports; and nighttime and Sunday fares, to Londoners and visitors to the capital. Until 26 June
Things you MUST NOT DO in Covent Garden
Did you know that you’re not permitted to climb a tree on Hampstead Heath? Nor may you place a tripod, train a whippet, harry a fish or ride a donkey faster than 12mph. Them’s the byelaws. I love scrutinising byelaws. They often include measures that seem preposterous today, but which were designed to counter a real nuisance in days of yore.
Another place with a long set of Thou Shalt Nots is Covent Garden Market. If someone tells you to meet them at Rules, they’re probably talking about the fancy restaurant on Maiden Lane. But they might just be referring to the lengthy list of prohibitions that decorates a wall within the old market buildings.
Covent Garden was, of course, a famous fruit, veg and flower market for most of its history. Its streets and alleys were filled with traders, right up until the 1970s when they decamped to Nine Elms. In their place, the old market buildings are now filled with fancy cake shops, chocolatiers, superior souvenir shops and purveyors of luxury beauty products. There’s even a Moomin shop. Yet here and there, echoes of the fruit & veg market remain, and nowhere more potently than in the four wooden panels that spell out the bye-laws.
It’s clear from their language that these rules were drawn up some time ago. The preamble pins them to an Act of Parliament in the ninth year of George IV, which would be 1829. The board itself is only half that age, however. It carries a date of 1924.
Most people walk straight past this ancient sign without giving it a second thought. But let’s pay it the attention it deserves. The 25 byelaws it advertises have surely been repealed. Let’s hope so, anyway, otherwise the surrounding businesses will have to pay out many a shilling for transgressions...
Panel 1
Panel 1, it has to be admitted, is a bit of a dull start. Its seven rules are mostly concerned with the coming and going of goods for sale. Basically, you’re not allowed to leave empty hampers or carts lying around, you must pay any demanded tolls on goods, and you must declare, if asked, where your produce has come from. All pretty mundane stuff. Next please.
Panel 2
Now we’re getting a bit juicier.
First up, Rule VIII, you can be fined 40 shillings for trading on a Sunday anywhere in the market. For the benefit of overseas readers, the UK still has rules about Sunday trading, with larger stores only permitted to open for six hours. Small shops and stall-based vendors can do as they wish. Modern Covent Garden is all a-bustle on a Sunday, which would have horrified the Victorians.
Rule IX lays out what can be traded from Covent Garden. The list, repeated throughout the rules, is very specific: Fruit, Flowers, Vegetables, Roots, Herbs or Seeds. Sadly for the surrounding businesses of 2025, there is no mention of gelato, iPhones or Moomins among the permitted produce — though perhaps the Apple Store flies under the radar thanks to its fruity name. The one exception to this rule is in Public Houses (pubs), where you can trade “such articles as are usually sold in Public Houses”, which is presumably beer, crisps and nuts.
Rule X is an extraordinarily long-winded way of saying ‘market workers must carry ID’ — here in the form of a numbered ticket that had to be visibly worn. The opening words make it sound like the market suffered from malicious imposters, adopting the dress of porters and ‘basket women’ for purposes of fraud and theft.
Rules XI and XII both concern themselves with respectful behaviour to other market workers and inspectors. Rule XII is a giddying bit of legalese, where the clauses keep coming and coming in such relentless waves that the reader can no longer hold the whole sentence in memory. I think it amounts to ‘no swearing’.