Guided Tour of No. 1 Goodwin's Court, Wednesday 19 March

Join Open City Friends for this guided tour of No. 1 Goodwins Court on Wednesday 19 March.

We have three guided tours, starting at: 11.00, 12.30, 14.00

Built between 1690-1720, No. 1 Goodwins Court celebrates 300 years of existence with the completion of its painstaking 10-year restoration. Part of a row of Grade II* Listed buildings within Covent Garden’s Conservation Area, it is a rare survivor of a building type reflecting the conditions of London's Georgian working classes. Goodwins Court was the inspiration for Harry Potter's Diagon Alley.

The row’s interiors were likely made-over to some degree around 1826, during the late Regency era, as London grew enormously to become a global city of immense importance and prosperity. However, for the masses, poverty was rampant as the population began its industrial labour migration to cities, aggravated by the combined impact of war, economic collapse, mass unemployment, and an ongoing population boom.

The layout of Number 1 Goodwins Court is comprised of a shop with bow window on the ground floor, a basement below, and two floors above, the first being a reception room and the top floor a bedroom. The tiny alley along the back of the row was used by the ‘night-soil’ collector, on his evening rounds.

The row of eight properties in Goodwins Court were all associated with the ‘rag trade’ as described by Charles Dickens in his novels ‘A Christmas Carol’ 1843 and ‘Bleak House’ 1852. A later literary connection has been made with Goodwin’s Court by J.K.Rowling in the ‘Harry Potter’ series as the setting for ‘Ollivander’s Wand Shop’ in Diagon Alley and Borgin and Burkes in Knockturn Alley, and was also used as a setting for ‘Mary Poppins Returns’ 2018.

Until the time of James I (1566- 1625), St. Martin's Lane was a country lane linking the churches of St. Martin-in-the-Fields and St. Giles-in-the-Fields; as such it was probably in existence at the beginning of the 13th century, and there may have been a field path there even earlier. In 1612 the vestry ordered that the lane should be paved, but the "water of the Sewer" was still to be "carryed above the ground." As late as 1625 it was reported to the vestry that "St. Martin's Lane is now full of great muckhills."

In 2014, No. 1 Goodwins Court was purchased by Susan Walker, with the intent of restoring this rare Georgian building to its original form and function as a family home. Ten years later, we celebrate the completion of this delicate project, a painstaking removal of layers of commercial rental additions through to its time as a television production office.

Please note this tour is for Friends of Open City only. For more information about Friends email friends@open-city.org.uk