With a covered entry from Monmouth Street at its northern corner and an open entry from Short’s Gardens at its south-eastern end, the triangular space known as Neal’s Yard is located at the centre of the triangular street-block bounded by Monmouth Street, Neal Street and Short’s Gardens and is lined on all three sides with buildings largely separate from the buildings on the three street-frontages.
Up until the mid-1970s, Neal’s Yard did not appear on the London A-Z map, being a collection of warehouses and workshops largely associated with Covent Garden market. In 1976, ‘alternative’ entrepreneur Nicholas Saunders started the Wholefood Warehouse and with his encouragement and enterprise the Yard became a thriving centre of small independent businesses, some of which went on to become internationally-known. Today, with its generous planting and idiosyncratic street furniture, Neal’s Yard is a very successful and popular space. Its very popularity means that care must be taken to ensure that its character is not lost.
A perhaps surprising aspect of Neal’s Yard is the extent of the residential accommodation within the Yard and backing onto it from its bounding streets. This is illustrated in axonometric drawings for each section.
