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Seven Dials is a small road junction in Covent Garden in the West End of London where seven streets converge. At the centre of the roughly circular space is a pillar bearing six sundials, a result of the pillar being commissioned before a late stage alteration of the plans from an original six roads. The term also refers informally to the immediate surrounding area. == History == The landed estate formally belonged to the Worshipful Company of Mercers which allowed building licences on what was open farmland to maximise their income in what was the burgeoning West End of the developing metropolitan area. The original layout of the Seven Dials area was designed by Thomas Neale in the early 1690s. The original plan had six roads converging, although this was later increased to seven. The sundial pillar was built with only six faces, with the dial itself acting as the seventh. This number of roads was chosen in order to maximise the number of houses that could be built on the site. Following the successful development of the fashionable Covent Garden Piazza area nearby, Neale aimed for the Seven Dials site to be popular with well-off residents. This was not to be, however, and the area gradually deteriorated. At one stage, each of the seven apexes facing the column housed a pub. By the nineteenth century, Seven Dials had become one of the most notorious slums in London, being part of the rookery of St Giles. The area was described by Charles Dickens in his collection ''Sketches by Boz'', which includes the quote: The relatively down-market status of this location is also epitomised by W. S. Gilbert in these lines from ''Iolanthe'' It was still a byword for urban poverty in the early twentieth century, when Agatha Christie set ''The Seven Dials Mystery'' (1929) there. The original sundial column was removed in 1773. It had been believed that this was due to being pulled down by an angry mob, although recent research suggests that it was deliberately removed by the Paving Commissioners in an attempt to rid the area of "undesirables". The remains were acquired by architect James Paine, who kept them at his house in Addlestone, Surrey. In 1820, the remains were purchased by public subscription and re-erected in nearby Weybridge, as a memorial to Princess Frederica Charlotte of Prussia, Duchess of York and Albany. In the 1840s Seven Dials was a focal point for the Chartists in their campaign for electoral reform. However, the intended uprisings there were thwarted by police infiltrators. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Seven Dials」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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