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Tube: Covent Garden. Bow Street , to the east of the Covent Garden Piazza, is famous for its magistrates' court, first opened in 1748. Here, Henry Fielding, author of Tom Jones, and his blind half-brother John set about creating the city's first police force, the Bow Street Runners . Never numbering more than a dozen, they were employed primarily to combat prostitution. Before it was finally closed in 1989, Bow Street police station also had the honour of incarcerating Oscar Wilde after he was arrested for "committing indecent acts" in 1895 - he was eventually sentenced to two years' hard labour. And in 1928, Radclyffe Hall's lesbian novel, Well of Loneliness, was deemed obscene by Bow Street magistrates and remained banned in this country until 1949.
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