Our autumn issue marks one full year of The Covent Gardener, and what better way to celebrate than an exclusive cover design by legendary children’s writer and illustrator Sir Quentin Blake!

We hear from historian Hallie Rubenhold about Harris’s List, a salacious eighteenth-century guide to the area’s brothels. Andrew Shields tells how Covent Garden, not famed for its sporting heritage, was home to one of the capital’s first bare-knuckle boxing venues, while later we find out how Thomas Coutts (of banking fame) became one of the West End’s major patrons.

Earlier in the year, we caught up with Trevor Sorbie MBE, hearing all about the legacy of his 10-year-old charity MyNewHair. Elsewhere Russian photographer Sasha Gusov reminisces about tricking his way backstage to snap the Bolshoi Ballet, a feat that might have seen him fall foul of the Bow Street Runners, London’s first police force, also covered this issue.

On your next trip to Covent Garden, drop into Cure and Cut for a cinnamon bacon roll, or visit the Gin Palace at The Strand Palace Hotel before Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “School of Rock”.