HISTORICAL SOUNDS | LONDON STREETS 1909
A collection of descriptions and references to sounds drawn mainly from primary sources such as autobiographies, diaries and statutes, as well as novels written around the times they depict.
| Sub-category | 1st to 10th |
11th to 15th |
16th to 17th |
18th | Early 19th |
Late 19th |
Early 20th |
Late 20th |
| General sounds of street and town | 7 | 2 | 10 | 4 | 1 | |||
| Open-air markets | 1 | 1 | 2 | |||||
| Road traffic | 1 | 1 | 2 | |||||
| Communal living and confinement | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | ||||
| River traffic and related sounds | 5 | 1 | 1 | |||||
| Plague, war and disaster | 1 | 6 | 1 | 3 | ||||
| Sound qualities of buildings | 1 | |||||||
| Sounds of crowds | 1 |
Period referred to: 1830s
Sound category: Ambient > Open-air markets
Title of work: Oliver Twist
Type of publication: Novel
Author: Charles Dickens
Year of publication: 1838
Page/volume number: Chapter XXI
Oliver Twist and Bill Sikes visit Smithfield meat market
Turning down Sun Street and Crown Street, and crossing Finsbury square, Mr. Sikes struck, by way of Chiswell Street, into Barbican: thence into Long Lane, and so into Smithfield; from which latter place arose a tumult of discordant sounds that filled Oliver Twist with amazement.
It was market-morning. [. . .] Countrymen, butchers, drovers, hawkers, boys, thieves, idlers, and vagabonds of every low grade, were mingled together in a mass; the whistling of drovers, the barking dogs, the bellowing and plunging of the oxen, the bleating of sheep, the grunting and squeaking of pigs, the cries of hawkers, the shouts, oaths, and quarrelling on all sides; the ringing of bells and roar of voices, that issued from every public-house; the crowding, pushing, driving, beating, whooping and yelling; the hideous and discordant din that resounded from every corner of the market [. . .]