7 December 1732: First Covent Garden Theatre opens

On this day in 1732, after a successful fundraising drive, the first theatre opened on the site of the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden.

Concert at New Covent Garden Theatre in London
(Image credit:  DeAgostini/Getty Images)

In the early 18th century, just two theatre companies were allowed to perform serious drama in London – at Lincoln's Inn and Drury Lane both of which were in receipt of Letters of Patent from Charles II.

After putting on a long-running and successful production of The Beggar's Opera, John Rich, actor and manager at Lincoln's Inn, found himself with enough money to build a whole new, bigger theatre. He took a 61-year lease on a site in Covent Garden, not far from his rival on Drury Lane, and commissioned Edward Shepherd to design and build it, at a cost of £5,600.

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Ben Judge

Ben studied modern languages at London University's Queen Mary College. After dabbling unhappily in local government finance for a while, he went to work for The Scotsman newspaper in Edinburgh. The launch of the paper's website, scotsman.com, in the early years of the dotcom craze, saw Ben move online to manage the Business and Motors channels before becoming deputy editor with responsibility for all aspects of online production for The Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday and the Edinburgh Evening News websites, along with the papers' Edinburgh Festivals website.

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