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Church Street Market 6:43
Time, date and weather: 2 pm, Saturday 16th September 2017. Partly overcast, 15°C, wind 8 mph.
Description: Starting at the junction of Church Street and Edgware Road. Traffic on Edgware Road, growing fainter; hubbub of voices; rustle of carrier bags, sizzle of food being cooked at a stall; thumps and bangs of market goods being shifted about; a stallholder's cry in the middle distance; a car alarm sounds from Penfold Street; a brief rattling like the end of a stick being dragged over the ground; a stallholder repeats a cry; squeak of clothes hangers on a rail; a van manoeuvres slowly near the junction with Salisbury Street; metallic sounds like cooking pots being moved about; a radio plays at a stall; the market begins to thin out east of the junction with Ashbridge Street; a rushing sound like that of a fume extractor; recorded music from a stall; an elderly couple talk to a stallholder; traffic on Lisson Grove.
Comments: When I visited Church Street in 2001 to take photos, the market had a reasonable number of stalls but didn't look like it had many customers. The market is now a good deal busier, so much so that walking was sometimes reduced to a snail's pace. Many of the customers and stallholders are now North African and Middle Eastern, part of a general demographic change evident along Edgware Road north of the Marylebone flyover.