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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East Street, Barking 4:38

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

Time, date and weather: 12.25 pm, Saturday 30th September 2017. Partly overcast, 15°C, wind 11 mph.

Description: Starting at the junction of East Street and North Street. Traffic on North Street, receding; some small object falls and skitters on the ground; a man calls out to an acquaintance; a child's voice; chopping sounds from a fishmonger's stall; a growing number of voices; footsteps; faint noise of cutlery from a cafe; rattle of shopping trolleys; recorded music from a stall; a clothes seller raises his cry; a radio plays at a stall; electronic cheeping sounds from a toy stall; traffic noise grows louder; a reggae version of 'Stand up, stand up for Jesus' plays from a stall.

Comments: The market sounds quieter compared to this recording made in 2015, but at least some of the difference could be attributed to the earlier recording having been made an hour later in the day.