A busker's racket is just what Covent Garden needs

In the Middle Ages, London street life offered a famously chaotic panorama of beggars, acrobats, fiddlers, prostitutes and more than a few dancing bears, a particular attraction for excited visitors from out of town.

Although by the 18th century the bears and freak acts were increasingly confined to fairgrounds, the streets continued to hum with a daily hubbub of music, bawdy ballads and the cries of hawkers and salesmen, all competing to be heard.

Covent Garden's prissy planners would have been shocked by a trip to the capital in the 1790s, when "coarse and vulgar" language, obscene wordplay and open prostitution were common features of London's street life. On every corner, balladeers sang "flash songs" celebrating recent crimes and sexual exploits, and young children would happily listen to women singing the popular ballad The Morgan Rattler - an explicit celebration of male potency.

Although the lewd ballads had been stamped out by the Victorian era, the likes of Dickens and Darwin moved through a vibrant street culture that easily outshines our own. Dickens remembered hearing "English bands" outside suburban inns during his childhood in the 1820s, although they were later replaced by touring German brass bands whose quality was dubious but who solemnly knocked on every nearby door to demand funds.

London's buskers in 1895 included more than a thousand Italian barrel organists, fiddlers, tin whistlers and even harpists, cellists and clarinettists. On a given corner, visitors might see a blind Bible reader competing with a professional balladeer who sold copies of the music he sang.

Down the road there might be performing dogs, peep shows, Punch and Judy shows and pavement artists, who usually drew either Bible scenes or well-known characters such as Napoleon or Disraeli.

Even then, however, there were those who demanded an end to the noise. As early as 1839, laws cracked down on street sellers using bells and horns, and in 1864 Dickens himself campaigned for a law to move on buskers if local residents objected.

We have all heard dreadful buskers. But London's vibrant street life has always been part of our city's character. Their infernal din is what gives Covent Garden its charm: long may it continue.