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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Queen's Market, Upton Park 5:12

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

Time, date and weather: 12.45 pm, Saturday 30th September 2017. Mostly overcast, 16°C, wind 11 mph.

Description: Starting by the stalls on Green Street outside the market building. Traffic on Green Street; voices of shoppers; a trader at a fish stall raises his cry; noise of fishmongers' electric saws; a radio plays at a stall; meat is chopped at a butchers' stall; a large trolley clatters across the concrete floor; rustle of carrier bags; thumps of vegetable crates being shifted at the western end of the market building; a young child's voice; a radio plays at another stall; traffic on Green Street.

Comments: Queen's Market is mainly housed inside a purpose-built hall with a car park on top. Despite it being covered, the market is included in Street Life 2017 for two reasons. First, in atmosphere and appearance it's more like a wholesale market than a spick-and-span shopping centre. Second, its continued existence is largely down to the efforts of local campaigners who successfully resisted Newham Council's plans to redevelop the market into a smaller site surrounded by shops and the inevitable 'luxury flats'. The campaign group, Friends of Queen's Market, is still active and has its own website.