Winter Wonderland 2011 - Official Website. London Eye. Carnaby Street. Welcome To Covent Garden. Covent Garden. Piccadilly Circus. The Circus lies at the intersection of five main roads: Regent Street, Shaftesbury Avenue, Piccadilly Street, Covent Street and Haymarket. It was created by John Nash as part of the future King George IV's plan to connect Carlton House - where the Prince Regent resided - with Regent's Park.
The creation of Shaftesbury Avenue in 1885 turned the plaza into a busy traffic junction. This made Piccadilly Circus attractive for advertisers, who installed London's first illuminated billboards here in 1895. For some time the plaza was surrounded by billboards, creating London's version of Times Square, but Eros statue currently only one building still carries large (mostly electronic) displays. At the center of the Circus stands the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain. The name 'Piccadilly' originates from a seventeenth-century frilled collar The Circus at night named piccadil.