Charing Cross Street was a noisy, spacious place. It had large coaching inns to see travelers off or welcome them after their journeys, as well as aristocratic stables and kennels, and of course, the indispensable poor, always gathered at the docks, stations, and little street markets everywhere.
Though the Leaky Cauldron looked filthy and cramped by twentieth-century standards, it fit perfectly into eighteenth-century Charing Cross Street. Before the International Statute of Secrecy was implemented, Muggles could enter as well, although most of them had no idea the pub was run by wizards.
After the International Statute of Secrecy was implemented, the pub was still permitted to remain open, but Muggles were no longer allowed to enter freely. At the time, Diagon Alley was not yet a shopping street exclusively for wizards. The pub protected only the few shops directly adjacent to it. Later, more and more wizarding shops opened here, driving out the original butchers.
Some wizards, after buying wizarding supplies, would leave Diagon Alley and go to the Muggle markets to buy vegetables and meat, then use Floo Powder at the Leaky Cauldron to return home. Charing Cross Street had once been prosperous and splendid, but most of its buildings had now fallen into ruin, beyond saving. Every day at noon, two especially large stalls would be set up to sell "Bow-wow Pie." These pies were made from heavily seasoned meat, so no one could tell what animal it had once come from. A thick crust wrapped around the filling, lying in large, deep frying pans. Each pie cost 1.5 pence, and customers usually ate them on the spot.
At this hour, the terriers in the aristocratic kennels would bark incessantly, and the cavalry guards would appear as well. Thus, these nameless pies came to be called "Bow-wow Pie."