Shorts Gardens is a

street A street is a public thoroughfare in a city, town or village, typically lined with Building, buildings on one or both sides. Streets often include pavements (sidewalks), pedestrian crossings, and sometimes amenities like Street light, streetligh ...

in the

St Giles Saint Giles (, , , , ; 650 - 710), also known as Giles the Hermit, was a hermit or monk active in the lower Rhône most likely in the 7th century. Revered as a saint, his cult became widely diffused but his hagiography is mostly legendary. A ...

area of

Central London Central London is the innermost part of London, in England, spanning the City of London and several boroughs. Over time, a number of definitions have been used to define the scope of Central London for statistics, urban planning and local gove ...

. It runs eastwards from Seven Dials to

Drury Lane Drury Lane is a street on the boundary between the Covent Garden and Holborn areas of London, running between Aldwych and High Holborn. The northern part is in the borough of London Borough of Camden, Camden and the southern part in the City o ...

, crossing

Neal Street Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist sit ...

and

Endell Street Endell Street, originally known as Belton Street, is a street in London's West End that runs from High Holborn in the north to Long Acre and Bow Street, Covent Garden, in the south. A long tall narrow building on the west side is an 1840s-built ...

. The

Covent Garden Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist sit ...

district is located just to the south. The western stretch, one of the prongs that runs off Seven Dials, was known as Queen Street until 1903. The eastern stretch was named Shorts Gardens after William Short, the gardener of

Gray's Inn The Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, commonly known as Gray's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court (professional associations for barristers and judges) in London. To be called to the bar in order to practise as a barrister in England and Wale ...

who purchased the land in 1590 when it was still open countryside outside London and was owned by his descendants until 1690 when it was sold off for development.Denford and Hayes, p. 47 The western end featured houses built in the late 17th century and intended for the rich, but during the following century this became a

slum A slum is a highly populated Urban area, urban residential area consisting of densely packed housing units of weak build quality and often associated with poverty. The infrastructure in slums is often deteriorated or incomplete, and they are p ...

as part of the

rookery A rookery is a colony of breeding rooks, and more broadly a colony of several types of breeding animals, generally gregarious birds. Coming from the nesting habits of rooks, the term is used for corvids and the breeding grounds of colony-fo ...

of St Giles. The eastern stretch had poorer inhabitants from the beginning and at one point became a centre for Italian

organ grinder A street organ ( or ) played by an organ grinder is a French automatic mechanical pneumatic organ designed to be mobile enough to play its music in the street. The two most commonly seen types are the smaller German and the larger Dutch street or ...

s. This gave way over time to warehouses servicing the fruit trade in nearby

Covent Garden market Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End of London, West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopp ...

. When built, it was residential; it is now largely commercial.

Neal's Yard Neal's Yard is a small alley in London's Covent Garden between Shorts Gardens and Monmouth Street which opens into a courtyard. It is named after the 17th century developer, Thomas Neale. In 1976, Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam bought offi ...

runs off the street as does Nottingham Court. At Seven Dials on the corner between Shorts Gardens and

Monmouth Street Monmouth Street is a street in the Seven Dials district of Covent Garden, London, England. Monmouth Street runs north to south from Shaftesbury Avenue to a crossroads with Tower Street and Shelton Street, where it becomes St Martin's Lane. A ...

The Crown The Crown is a political concept used in Commonwealth realms. Depending on the context used, it generally refers to the entirety of the State (polity), state (or in federal realms, the relevant level of government in that state), the executive ...

pub, dating back as tavern to at least 1700.Denford and Hayes, p. 32

References

Sources

* Bebbington, Gillian. ''London Street Names''. Batsford, 1972. * Denford, Steven & Hayes, David ''Streets of St Giles''. Camden History Society, 2012.

External links

* Streets in the London Borough of Camden St Giles, London {{London-road-stub