Alternative lifestyle and Monty Python
Between 1974, when the fruit, vegetable and flower markets moved out, and the 1980s, when Covent Garden began to attract fashionable shops and crowds of tourists at a time, that is, when the area was still pleasantly shabby and rents were low, unconventional people breathed new life into a triangular back yard. The warehouses in Neal’s Yard had served the flower market and were still home to a company that made theatrical weapons and armour.
In 1978, an organic bakery with a café opened in Neal’s Yard. It was joined by a cheese shop and Neal’s Yard Remedies, which sold natural cosmetics and health products. Soon the courtyard had become the little island of alternative lifestyle that it still is today. The brick warehouse walls have been painted in gaudy colours – purple, orange, bright yellow. Seats have been placed around old metal barrels planted with bamboo and shrubs. Health and beauty treatments with a mystic touch are available in the Holistic Room, the hairdresser specialises in dreadlocks, and courses about how to gather wild food in woodlands and pastures can be booked.
Info
Address Between Short’s Gardens and Monmouth Street, WC2H 9AT | Public Transport Covent Garden (Piccadilly Line) | Tip Those who prefer traditional British fare to vegetarian wholefood will find excellent fish & chips at the Rock and Sole Plaice (47 Endell Street, Mon–Sat 11.30am–11.30pm, Sun noon–10pm). The Monty Python sketch is on YouTube.
Neal’s Yard Remedies, now a retail chain, is still present, and the Neal’s Yard Dairy, sourcing artisan cheesemakers, has moved around the corner into Short’s Gardens. In its early days, the shop struggled to gain a good reputation. John Cleese came in one day to find empty shelves. Production problems meant that yoghurt was on sale, but no cheese at all. The creative result of this mishap was Monty Python’s celebrated cheese-shop sketch. A plaque in the yard records that »Monty Python lived here«. The recent opening of a chic wine bar in Neal’s Yard suggests that the spreading commercialisation of Covent Garden may one day overpower the green, alternative ethos of this enclave, but the Wild Food Café is still selling its burgers filled with root vegetable jerk and smoothies enriched with Irish moss.
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