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Cambridge Circus is a busy road junction and small circus on the north-western edge of Covent Garden, where Charing Cross Road meets Shaftesbury Avenue at the boundary with Soho. It was laid out in the late nineteenth century as part of the major road improvements that drove these two thoroughfares through the crowded older streets, and it takes its formal circus shape from that planned scheme. The junction is dominated by the striking terracotta frontage of the Palace Theatre, one of London's landmark playhouses, which anchors the circus and reinforces its theatrical character. Present use combines heavy through-traffic on the two main roads with theatre, retail and dining premises around its edges, and it draws dense pedestrian crowds as a crossing point between Covent Garden, Soho and the theatre district. Cambridge Circus marks a clear threshold in the fabric of the West End, where the intimate lanes of Covent Garden give way to the broad Victorian avenues. For visitors, it is a prominent landmark and orientation point rather than a destination in itself, notable for its architecture and its position at the meeting of several of the area's principal streets.