Whilst today's Covent Garden abounds with street entertainment, shopping, bars and restaurants, the original "Convent Garden" was in fact the fruit and vegetable garden of a monastery.

A settlement has existed on the site since Roman times, and during the reign of King John a 40-acre patch was created to provide the Abbey or Convent of St Peter with its food. Over the next 300 years the convent garden began to supply Londoners outside the walls of the monastery and, via a corruption of the word 'convent', Covent Garden was born.

The land was taken for the crown in 1540 when King Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries. The land eventually passed to Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, who constructed Somerset House on the south side of the Strand. After he was beheaded for treason in 1552 the land passed to one of those who had been instrumental in Seymour's downfall.

The transition from kitchen garden to modern piazza square began in the early 17th century when the land was owned by Francis Russell, the Earl of Bedford. Russell hired Inigo Jones, one of the great English architects, to redevelop the area and Jones began with an arcaded piazza containing a church, St Paul's of Covent Garden.

After the Great Fire of London destroyed much of its East End competition, Covent Garden established itself as London's, and possibly Britain's, preeminent street market. It also became a centre of street entertainment, some wholesome, some not so wholesome: the first mention of a Punch and Judy show ever recorded is in Samuel Pepys' diaries, but the area was also a notorious red light district, and a popular 18th century document entitled "Harris' list of Covent Garden Ladies" provided a guide to these ladies of the night, including their addresses and specialties.

Today street artistes perform within the market and on the West and East Piazzas. Covent Garden is in fact the only part of London licensed for street entertainment and would-be performers have to audition in front of market management before getting approval and an allocated time slot. The courtyard space is dedicated to classical music.

In 2006 Covent Garden Market and Piazza was bought by Capital and Counties or "CapCo" for £421 million. In March 2007 the organisation also acquired the shops under the Royal Opera House. The complete Covent Garden Estate has a market value of £650 million.

Covent Garden also contains London's Transport Museum and the Royal Opera House, which is also colloquially known simply as "Covent Garden".

The area has featured prominently in films and plays over the years. George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion and its musical adaptation My Fair Lady both begin with a scene in which Professor Henry Higgins is waiting for a cab home from the opera and spots Eliza Doolittle selling flowers in the market.

Alfred Hitchcock's 1972 film Frenzy is set in the pubs and fruit markets of Covent Garden. The murderer is a local fruit vendor. In fact, Hitchcock was himself the son of a greengrocer and would have known the area. In a sense, the film was a nostalgic return to the streets of the director's childhood.