Covent Garden Market – See the Street Performers & Buskers in the Piazza

Photo: Craig Cross

Craig’s review… Covent Garden used to be a big fruit and vegetable market. If you wanted some fish then you’d go to Billingsgate, if you wanted some meat you’d go to Smithfield and if you wanted a bag of carrots then you’d come here. This went on quite happily for three hundred years until the surrounding businesses grew tired of the early morning traffic clogging up the roads and forced it to move out. So that was the end of that. No more trampled cabbage on the floor. No more pallets of potatoes being carted around the side streets by old blokes in flat caps. Gone.

Photo: Craig Cross

It’s amazing how the atmosphere of a place can change so completely in such a short space of time. If you bought a piece of fruit forty years ago then they’d twirl it around in a brown paper bag and charge you 20p, but if you want one now then it will probably come wedged on the edge of a cocktail glass. Their five-a-day used to be four pints of cider and some tomato ketchup on their chips. Now it’s a fruit smoothie and packet of dried banana chips. Welcome to Covent Garden.

Photo: Craig Cross

Punch & Judy pub, buskers & street entertainers

Covent Garden is famous for its buskers and street entertainers. Samuel Pepys saw his first Punch & Judy show around here – hence the Punch & Judy pub – and there’s a good viewing spot on its balcony where you can watch the circus performers juggling balls and swallowing swords, doing flips and magic tricks on the forecourt by St. Paul’s (the church… not the cathedral).

Photo: Craig Cross

If you arrive before 9 AM then all you’ll get is a row of drunks clutching crumpled-up cans of Diamond Light. They’ll be sitting on a cardboard carpet asking for money but it’s a tough crowd around here and people don’t want to hear their sob stories, they want to hear a song – this is Covent Garden, mate! If you want some money then people will expect a show.

Photo: Craig Cross

The street entertainer today is trying to squeeze his entire body through the centre of a tennis racket. He’s managed to wedge his head through but got stuck on his ears, so he’s summoned up a volunteer and asked him to fold over his lobes (not an easy thing to do when he’s wobbling around on a unicycle). He’s also threatened him with a lawsuit if he falls off, ho ho. This guy is quite funny. A crowd of people enjoys his show for twenty minutes and then disappears as soon as the hat gets passed around.

Classical music performances inside the piazza

Another good place to sit is downstairs in the piazza. That’s where I recommend going (that’s where I go). Look for some tables and chairs outside the wine bar and restaurant. It’s also very handy if the sky turns dark and water starts emptying out of it like it has right now – everyone has suddenly become a runner and made a mad dash whilst protecting their hair with whatever they’ve got: a soggy wet newspaper or a supermarket plastic bag.

Photo: Craig Cross

It’s a bit more upmarket down here because it’s all opera singers and string quartets. While the barista is cleaning and steaming out his coffee machine they’re treating us to some Vivaldi on three violins and a cello. And they follow that up with a jaunty verse of Bizet’s Carmen, complete with flamenco skirt swishes and quick little claps above their heads.

You can never be totally sure when the classical music starts because they’re basically just buskers, but the best time to visit is after 10 AM because then you can be pretty sure that someone will be there.

Piazza shops, stalls and Apple Market

Photo: Craig Cross

There are a couple of markets in and around the piazza. The Apple Market sells antiques on Monday and the rest of the week it’s all handmade gifts and trinkets… funny numbers for your front door, frosted bottles for your kitchen windowsill, coloured crystals to bring you good luck, moody black and white photos of Big Ben and Buckingham Palace, etc., stuff like that.

Have a nose around the stalls if you want but remember that Covent Garden is a tourist trap so all the prices are double what they need to be. You can see people dawdling by the stalls wondering whether to buy something but then they look at the prices and quickly change their mind: forty quid. The reason that they can get away with charging so much is because most of the tourists haven’t worked out the exchange rate yet. They still think that forty quid is the same as forty dollars.

Photo: Craig Cross

The most famous shops are Benjamin Pollock’s and a little place selling pipes and lighters (it has an 8-foot tall Scottish bagpiper standing out the front – you cant miss it). Some of their tobacco paraphernalia is so ornate it almost makes you want to start smoking.

Jubilee Market stalls

Jubilee Market is more of a traditional street market with stalls separated by flapping plastic sheets and fold-down tables overflowing with tubs of stuff that you might find boxed-up in your granddad’s shed – one couple are selling a collection of old tankards and Toby Jugs. Another one has a table full of candlesticks, pewter trays and plates.

Photo: Craig Cross

There are lots of boxes to root through with old guineas, shillings and pence, old army medals and arm patches, pocket watches, pottery dogs, collectible comics in their original plastic wrappings, vinyl records in their original paper sleeves, old stamps stuck to the corners of envelopes – it’s a bit of a pick‘n’mix and some of it might be worth a few bob if you know what you’re looking for.

Worth a visit? ★★★Value for money? n/aGood for kids? ★★☆Easy to get to? ★★★

I also recommend… If you enjoy this then try Chinatown (you can walk it in 7 mins); Leicester Square (you can walk it in 7 mins); Piccadilly Circus (walk it in 12 mins or travel from Covent Garden to Piccadilly Circus by underground); Trafalgar Square (you can walk it in 7 mins) and West End (you can walk it 10 mins)

The author Craig Cross owns city-guide.london and has spent the last decade reviewing the capital’s landmarks, attractions and hotels. His guidebook London Squire is available from Amazon. This review was updated on 5th March 2024

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