Seven Faces of the West End

Tucked away in the West End behind Leicester Square and Covent Garden is an unusually named area. I first heard of it when I was watching The Gentle Touch in the early 80s because that TV cop series was set there (albeit that many scenes were filmed in Kennington which I was much more familiar with).

I had no idea why it was called that and to start with I didn't know where it was, I even confused it with Seven Sisters in my mind at first, as I knew of that area from visiting an aunt. In fact however it was named for a sundial, a rather unique one however which has an interesting history.

The original layout of the Seven Dials area was designed by Thomas Neale in the early 1690s as part of the great rebuilding programme in London following the Great Plague and Fire. Originally there were to be six roads converging on a central circus, although this was later increased to seven probably in order to maximise the number of houses that could be built on the site, or at least the income that could be raised from the estate, as at that time rental values were based on the frontage, and not on the square footage.

In the middle of the circus was erected a doric column as a centrepiece, with a dial stone of six facets, each with sundials. So where is the seventh dial? Well, it's said that the column is itself the 7th gnomon and the circus the dial, though how you would read it and indeed how it would cast a shadow when it's often in the shade of one of the surrounding buildings is a question needing an answer! Sundials however were commonly used as public timepieces in late 17th Century London before the arrival of the accurate clocks of today, as similar 4 faceted ones erected at Convent Garden in 1688 and New Square, Lincoln's Inn from around 1700 testify.

Neale disposed of his interest in the site, and the rest of the development was carried out by individual builders over the next 15 years. Today his involvement is recorded only by two street names - Neal Street and Neal's Yard.

Over the years the area went into decline and by the middle of the 18th century to the extent that 39 night-watchmen were needed to keep the peace; and by the early 19th century the area became famous, together with St. Giles to the north, as the most notorious rookery in London

During this period the column was removed. There are various stories about why, that this was due to it being pulled down by an angry mob or that the column was destroyed in an attempt to find buried treasure which was rumoured to be underneath.

In fact the column was acquired by architect James Paine, who kept the stones at his house in Addlestone, Surrey for the following years.


There its story might have ended, but when a popular philanthropist died in Weybridge a collection in her memory was organised by local publican Joseph Todd for a monument to her, Princess Frederica Duchess of York, and the stones were re-erected as a monument in Weybridge. It was decided however that the dial stone was too heavy to cap it, and a ducal coronet was used instead with the base of the column inscribed to the Duchess.

The "Dial Stone" was used as a mounting block at first, later being moved to the Council Offices, then to the west side of the library where it can still be seen.

The Seven Dials Monument Charity was set up in 1984, at the request of Camden Council, to finally restore one of the City's 'great public ornaments' to the now historic conservation area of Seven Dials. Various attempts have made this century to have column the returned to its original site in Seven Dials, but Weybridge refused to return it.

Luckily for the Charity Edward Pierce's original working drawing was held in the British Museum, which enabled architect A.D. 'Red' Mason to faithfully reproduce 'this great public ornament'. One of the problems for the project was how to design the foundations so as to satisfy all the authorities whose services ran beneath the Dials. Eventually they built an underground platform which bridges the services.

The column, made from 'Whitebed', one of the finest types of Portland Stone was carved and erected in 1988/89 with the bulk of the work carried out by trainee masons at Vauxhall College and Ashby and Horner Stonemasonry, a large youth training project.

The trainee masons raised and lowered all the stones by hand, using similar methods to those used in the Seventeenth Century. Each section of the column sits on reinforcing pins joining it to the sections below. The whole erecting process took two and a half months.

Caroline Webb designed, carved and gilded the Dial faces with each face enabling different hours of the day to be read, so it was essential that each face was carved exactly to astronomical calculations, and then that the Dial stone, weighing 1 tonne, was placed accurately. In the end three days were spent with an astronomer on site setting the stone so that each of the 6 faces is now accurate within ten seconds.

Once erected two 40 foot Carlsberg Lager Cans hid the Monument until its unveiling, which was performed by Her Majesty Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, accompanied by her husband Prince Claus 29th June 1989. The lager can advertising raised ￡10,000 for the charity.

Nowadays I often walk through the circus on my way from Charing Cross to Bloomsbury, there are often people hanging about, sitting on the Crepidoma or base around the column drinking either coffee or something stronger. Perhaps the undesirables in the area hanging around the original column was the cause of it being removed. We will never know for sure but it's certainly a nice area on a sunny day, let us hope this one stays put and doesn't move to the country.

Laurie Smith

More information can be found at http://www.sevendials.com/the_seven_dials_monument_charity.htm

Additional Pictures can be seen by clicking on the links in the text