Street life 2017

An array of daytime recordings made along street markets and other gathering-places which are pedestrianised by official design or unofficial habit. Playback of each recording is synced to a simple animation plotting the route taken.

Select a place by clicking on either a yellow spot below or its name from the list further down.

Brick Lane and Sclater Street • Brixton Station Road and Electric Avenue • Broadway, Bexleyheath • Bromley High Street • Cathedral Walk, Victoria • Chapel Market, Islington • Church Street Market • Clarence Street, Kingston • Columbia Road flower market • Covent Garden • Deptford Market • East Street, Barking • East Street, Walworth • Gerrard Street, Chinatown • Greens End and Powis Street, Woolwich • Hounslow High Street • Ilford High Road • Kings Cross • Kingston Market and Memorial Square • Leicester Square • Lewisham Market • Neal Street • North End and Surrey Street, Croydon • Palace Gardens, Enfield • Petticoat Lane • Portobello Road • Queen's Market, Upton Park • Ridley Road, Dalston • Roman Road Market • Romford Market and South Street • Shepherds Bush Market • Stratford station and Westfield approach • Sutton High Street • The Broadway, Stratford • Uxbridge High Street • Walthamstow Market • Wembley Central • Wembley Park • Westfield Shepherds Bush • Whitechapel Market • Whitecross Street

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Bromley High Street 4:52

Map image extract © OpenStreetMap contributors, reproduced under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 license.

Time, date and weather: 12.30 pm, Saturday 16th September 2017. Overcast, 15°C, wind 8 mph.

Description: Starting at the junction of Bromley High Street and Market Place. A man clears his throat and spits; voices and cries of passersby; a bus passes along Market Place; children bang bongo drums next to a charity display depicting Ghanaian village life; two fruit-and-veg stallholders raise their cries; a young child wails; footsteps; another fruit-and-veg stallholder calls out; rustle of carrier bags; recorded music from stalls; stallholders address their customers; clatter of cookware and sizzle of food from a stall with a small seating area; a fruit-and-veg stallholder near the junction with Ethelbert Road advertises grapes; traffic noise grows louder.

Comments: At the time of recording, a Salvation Army brass band had just finished playing about halfway along Bromley High Street and were packing up their instruments.