Covent Garden Area Trust

This year's Rent Ceremony - although as eccentric as ever - will be a more simple affair than in the past. To recap: the Trust has a 150-year headlease on the Piazza's main buildings. In the Piazza, every June, the Chairman and Trustees hand over the "peppercorn" rents due to the freeholders. For each headlease, the Trust pays one red apple and a posy of flowers. The five headleases include the Museums and Bedford Chambers' blocks as well as the Central Market.

Previously we have had to hand over "rents" to as many as four different freeholders. This has led to a lot of stopping and starting of our accompanying jazz band and the Town Crier's speeches. This year, there are only two freeholders: Scottish Widows, the proud new owners of the Market and the Museums block (adding to Bedford Chambers), and Lothbury who own the south west James Street terrace.

Apart from our headleases, local land ownership has now been greatly simplified. Scottish Widows have formed a partnership with Henderson Global, which, in effect, creates a combined estate encircling the Piazza. If you could add in the Royal Opera House, St. Paul's, Lloyd's Bank and Doc Martens, you would end up with the sort of chunk that was owned by the Dukes of Bedford up to the turn of the century.

So far the portents are good. Scottish Widows have announced that one of the Piazza's most important buildings - 43 King Street, built in 1716 - will be sensitively restored. The Central Market, too, is being renovated. With imagination and hard work, this most historic market square could feel creative, anarchic and stylish once again.

For information about the Rent Ceremony or membership, visit www.cgareatrust.org.uk or contact us at 44 Maiden Lane, London, WC2E 7LJ 020 7497 9245.

Leana Pooley, Administrator

Covent Garden Community Association Annual Report 2000-2001

 

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