This season, London goes through a dazzling transformation. String lights make breath-taking scenes over our busy streets, and Christmas markets deliver that dreamy scent of mulling spices to warm up winter's breezes. There is a kind of magic in the air, and you can follow it through Covent Garden Market to Benjamin Pollock's Toy Shop for our next Local Story.
‘If you love art, folly or the bright eyes of children, speed to Pollock’s’ ~Robert Louis Stevenson, on his first visit to Benjamin Pollock’s
Louise, the local personality I'm interviewing today, works in the heart of Covent Garden, and I’m right in time to witness the West End’s festive makeover. Amid the usual morning commuter traffic, I get to watch store windows frosted, tinsel unravelled and evergreens unwrapped, spritzing the walkways with their fresh pine perfume.
Walking past overflowing stalls and busy store fronts in the Market, stairs lead down on my left, where a soprano is serenading lunchtime diners in the courtyard. On my right, I spot the hand-painted door I’m looking for.
I climb the stairs and enter a treasure trove of beautiful toys. Louise’s team have finished decorating the store for the holiday rush, and it looks like Christmas morning.
“Covent Garden Market has a constant stream of new, interesting people. I've moved around in my life, but I always end up coming back.”
~ Louise
Louise Heard is as creative and cheerful a person as you’d expect to be living out their dream job in a toy shop. She began working at Benjamin Pollock’s as a teenager in 1985, and she's now the Director with a passion for art, storytelling and an encyclopedic knowledge of London theatre.
Covent Garden Market, Louise says, is frequently part of the first day in London for international visitors. Her day is filled with the excitement of people seeing London for the first time, “It’s a very trendy area, and so many shops are filtering in and out. Not us. For a lot of visitors, they might come once every 10 years, and we're a constant. We’ve got something special to remind them of London.”
This “something special” is at the heart of Benjamin Pollock’s story, and hugely representative of the West End, its history dating back hundreds of years. Louise works with illustrators, artists and set designers to create the shop’s signature product, the Toy Theatre.
Louise leads me to, possibly, the best seat in the house. The shelves around us are lined with beautiful Toy Theatres. As an introduction, she says, “A lot of London’s ‘theatre royalty’ had these as children, like Ian McKellen and Ralph Fiennes. Also, a lot of people behind the scenes, the quieter kids who become stage designers or script writers… A Toy Theatre kind of starts them on this path.”
There are designs for London’s most iconic stages and for upcoming musicals, “We did a collaboration with Disney…specifically for Frozen, the musical, which is on over at Drury Lane.” There are sets for children to tell their own stories, and ones for adults who enjoy building models or collecting art.
The art of toys
Louise walks me through some of their recent collaborations, like a line of fairy tales designed by renowned illustrators. I also see this year’s limited-edition Toy Theatre for collectors, by internationally acclaimed theatre designer John MacFarlane, with scenes from his beloved stage interpretation of The Nutcracker.
It’s a complex process to create these theatres, “it’s a mix between print, illustration, animation and 3D design,” and Louise explains how artists approach this unique challenge differently. Illustrators, for instance, “think in kind of a pictorial way. [Toy Theatres are] like building an animation. You've got a backdrop and lay scenes on top, working in flat layers.”
Louise points to John McFarlane’s design, “as a theatre designer, he specialises in a trompe-l’oeil style (highly realistic art that seems 3D in a 2D medium). You see his three-dimensions in the painting. His job is to make something really big, so an audience can see. Then we take his designs, shrink them down, and work out how to make it flat, so you get the experience of building a 3D piece.”
Past meets future
Benjamin Pollock’s plays multiple parts in the West End’s history. Covent Garden was a fruit, flowers and vegetable market until the 70s, when it became too difficult to organise deliveries in these narrow streets. Louise says, “this particular room would have been an office for an accountant for the market,” and I imagine the shelves of ink-stained ledgers that would be replaced by these whimsical toys. Benjamin Pollock’s opened its Covent Garden store when the flower market first re-opened as a shopping centre, and it’s the last original shop from the time.
It's also one of the last bastions of Theatre shops in the area. Louise says, “From Victorian times through the 30s, this area would have been all about the theatre. You’d have the seamstresses, scene painters, theatrical chandlers who make the machinery. I mean, that's why warehouses around here have really big entrances, they would have had to take in giant scenery.”
While Benjamin Pollock’s has these deep historical roots, it is situated in Covent Garden, constantly surrounded by the newest trends to hit London, new businesses and new visitors on their first day in the country. Toy Theatres mark the opening of new West End shows, and up-and-coming artists perform right outside. Benjamin Pollocks has one foot in each of the two most fascinating stories of Covent Garden.
The best part of her day
Louise and I are nudged out of our corner by tourists squeezing in for a better look. Near our new location, a child is entranced by a music box, and when I listen through my recording after the interview, I’ll hear that twinkling melody as a charming soundtrack to our words.
“What is the best part of your day?” I ask.
After a beat, she says, “It changed a lot here with the pandemic. London was so empty. So yeah, the best part of my day is meeting lots of international customers, or people from around the country. Here, everyone who walks through the door is interesting.”
“I feel like, you know, we were all going so fast before. Covent Garden saw something like 44 million people per year. If you think you went from millions of people to nobody…”
Over the years, Louise has seen Covent Garden transform into a tourist destination. Living in the West End puts you in among London’s immeasurable culture capital. You have globally recognised landmarks, renowned museums and theatres, your pick of food and drink, and important history around every corner. Foxtons fast-paced West End office handles some remarkable properties for sale, to let and for short let, and they’ll be the first to tell you, West End property is exceedingly rare and incredibly desirable. When you buy or rent here, you’re here for the unrivalled amenities.
So, when tourists couldn’t come and businesses couldn’t open, the West End was unbelievably quiet. “It was really an interesting time to stop and think about your customer. When we reopened in 2021, a lot of Londoners came, especially with children, because they needed to get out. Before then, Londoners tended to think Covent Garden was for tourists. They rediscovered us, and we rediscovered them.”
“In summer, it used to be based around what country was having their school holiday. I used to know like clockwork, 'Okay, now it's Sweden,' but we're rediscovering our local family customer.”
“We couldn't have everybody touching things, which, in a toy shop, is kind of a nightmare. So, we did a pick and mix. Some kids hadn’t really been in a shop, what with internet shopping, so it became educational. A lot of families quite enjoyed that aspect of it. Kids would have to come up and ask for something and do the maths.”
As London re-opened, Louise and her team continued meeting lockdown friends from around the country and the globe, “We’ve been so busy this year. People are rediscovering the big cities, and storytelling is a big part of London.”
Speed to Pollock’s…
Finally, I ask about Covent Garden Market at Christmas, and Louise beams, “I’m biased, but it’s the best place to be. We just spent the week putting it all up, and the team, very sweetly, opened the doors for each other, and turned the Christmas lights on, so they could share the magic of that moment.”
“At the end of the day, we’re all about the silliness, the inspiration for the art, the folly – it’s all about Christmas morning for them, that’s when you see the bright eyes of children.”
“We think we are the Christmas shop,” she laughs. “This year, we’re doing a collaboration with Strand Palace, they’re doing a Pollock’s High Tea. That's the West End community; everyone who works here, we’re all excited, we all want to show off the magic of the West End.”
The Foxtons West End office agrees with the sentiment, “Like anyone who works in the West End, we’re absolutely proud of what it has to offer. There’s entertainment in Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square and Trafalgar Square; shopping in Oxford Street and Regents Street; dining in Chinatown and drinking in Soho. If you want to live with easy access to the West End, whether by investing in Prime Central London or living a bit further out along the transport lines, get in touch. If you’re selling or renting your property in the West End, we have the local and international resources to make the right deal for you.”
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