The central space in this neighbourhood, called Seven Dials, was so named on account of the plan upon which the neighbourhood was laid out for building, seven streets being made to converge at a centre, where there was a pillar adorned with, or at all events, intended to be adorned with, seven dial faces. Till this column was put up, it was called "the Seven Streets," according to the "New View of London," which tells us that at the time of its publication (1708) only four of the seven streets had been actually built. The locality is built on what was formerly known as the Marshlands, and also as Cock and Pie Fields. These, were surrounded by a ditch, which ran down to St. Martin's and so into the Thames, but was blotted out when the Seven Dials was built. Evelyn thus mentions the work in his " Diary," under date 5th October, 1694:— "I went to see the building near St. Giles, where seven streets made a star, from a Doric pillar placed in the middle of a circular area, said to be built by Mr. Neale, introducer of the late lotteries, in imitation of those at Venice." Gay, in his "Trivia," sings
"Here to seven streets Seven Dials count their day,
And from each other catch the circling ray."
It appears that the dial-stone had but six faces, two of the seven streets opening into one angle. The column and dials were removed in June, 1774. to search for a treasure supposed to be concealed beneath the base; they were never replaced, but in 1822 were purchased of a stonemason, and the column was surmounted with a ducal coronet, and set up on Weybridge Green as a memorial to the late Duchess of York, who died at Oatlands, in 1820. The dial-stone formed a stepping-stone at the adjoining "Ship" inn. The angular direction of each street renders the spot rather embarrassing to a pedestrian who crosses this maze of buildings unexpectedly, and frequently causes him to diverge from the road that would lead him to his destination.
The business carried on in Seven Dials seems to be of a very heterogeneous character. It is the great haunt of bird and bird-cage sellers, also of the sellers of rabbits, cats, dogs, &c.; and as some of the houses, being of an old fashion, have broad ledges of lead over the shop windows, these are frequently found converted into miniature gardens, which help, in some degree, to counterbalance the squalor and misery still to be seen in some of the courts and lanes hard by. In certain of the streets close by not a few of the shops are devoted to the sale of old clothes, second-hand boots and shoes, &c.; ginger-beer, green-grocery, and theatrical stores. Cheap picture-frame makers also abound here. In many of the houses, in some of these streets, whole families seem to live and thrive in a single room. In Charles Knight's "London" we read that "cellars serving whole families for ‘kitchen, and parlour, and bed-room, and all,' are to be found in other streets of London, but not so numerous and near to each other. Here they cluster like cells in a convent of the order of La Trappe, or like onions on a rope. It is curious and interesting to watch the habits of these human moles when they emerge, or half emerge, from their cavities. Their infants seem exempt from the dangers which haunt those of other people: at an age when most babies are not trusted alone on a level floor, these urchins stand secure on the upmost round of a trap-ladder studying the different conformations of the shoes of the passers-by. The mode of ingress of the adults is curious : they turn their backs to the entry, and; inserting first one foot and then the other, disappear by degrees. The process is not unlike (were such a thing conceivable) a sword sheathing itself. They appear a short-winded generation, often coming, like the otter, to the surface to breathe. In the twilight, which reigns at the bottom of their dens, you can sometimes discern the male busily cobbling shoes on one side of the entrance, and the female repairing all sorts of rent garments on the other." They seem to be free traders: at certain periods of the day tea-cups and saucers may be seen arranged on their boards; at others, plates and pewter pots. They have the appearance of being on the whole a contented race."
"On one occasion," says Mr. J. Smith, in his "Topography of London," "that I might indulge the humour of being shaved by a woman, I repaired to the Seven Dials, where, in Great St. Andrew's Street, a slender female performed the operation, whilst her husband, a strapping soldier in the Horse Guards, sat smoking his pipe. There was a famous woman in Swallow Street, who shaved; and I recollect a black woman in Butcher Row, a street formerly standing by the side of St. Clement's Church, near Temple Bar, who is said to have shaved with ease and dexterity. Mr. Batrick informs me that he has read of the five barberesses of Drury Lane, who shamefully maltreated a woman in the reign of Charles II."
Considering the class of the inhabitants, it is not surprising that many lodging-houses are to be met with here. Diprose, in his "Book about London," tells us that perhaps the most celebrated and notorious of those in St. Giles's was kept by "Mother Cummins."
It is related that Major Hanger accompanied George IV. to a beggars' carnival in St. Giles's. He had not been there long when the chairman, Sir Jeffery Dunstan, addressing the company, and pointing to the then Prince of Wales, said, "I call upon that ere gemman with a shirt for a song." The prince, as well as he could, gut excused upon his friend promising to sing for him, and he chanted a ballad called "The Beggar's Wedding, or the Jovial Crew," with great applause. The major's health having been drank with nine times nine, and responded to by him, wishing them "good luck till they were tired of it," he departed with the prince, to afford the company time to fix their different routes for the ensuing day's business. At that period they used to have a ‘general meeting in the course of the year, and each day they were divided into companies, each company having its particular walk; their earnings varied much, some getting as much as five shillings per day.
Monmouth (afterwards Dudley) Street, which will now be looked for in vain, is the street to which Daniel Burgess referred when preaching on the subject of a "robe of righteousness." "If any one of you, my brethren," he said, "would have a suit to last a twelvemonth, let him go to Monmouth Street ; if for his lifetime, let him apply to the Court of Chancery; but if for eternity, let him put on the Saviour's robe of righteousness."