Covent Garden has been a popular destination for over 1500 years.  Our three lectures trace the story from its origins as a thriving Saxon port to Inigo Jones’ revolutionary ‘piazza' plan, and how the fruit and vegetable market was nearly demolished in the 1970s.  We will take a deeper dive into the demi monde world of Georgian vice depicted by Hogarth, meet some extraordinary characters and open the pages of Harris's infamous "Covent Garden Ladies”.  In our 'finale' lecture, we raise the curtain on Covent Garden as a place of entertainment: the birth of the West End, the piazza’s street performers over the centuries, meeting some of the stars who have graced the stages of London's 'theatreland'.