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: 1820s
Sound category: Ambient > Animal- and engine-powered traffic
Title of work: Lavengro
Type of publication: Autobiography
Author: George Borrow
Year of publication: 1851
Page/volume number: Unknown
‘Oh the cracking of whips, the shouts and oaths of the carters’
Thousands of human beings were pouring over [London] bridge. But what chiefly struck my attention was a double row of carts and wagons, the generality drawn by horses as large as elephants, each row striving in a different direction, and not infrequently brought to a standstill. Oh the cracking of whips, the shouts and oaths of the carters, and the greating of wheels upon the enormous stones that formed the pavement!