On the market

London's markets—selling all manner of goods from livestock in the east to lavender in the south-west—used to be ubiquitous. Patrick Galbraith visits the ones still soldiering on

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DOWN at East Street Market, a lady on crutches stands by the fish stall in the Saturday-morning sun. ‘Harrington’s, that’s my local,’ she says to the trader in the white coat. ‘No,’ the lady standing next to her replies, ‘the pies there don’t taste as nice.’

‘Anyway, how you been, girl?’ the trader asks, as he hands over a pint of whelks. ‘Well it was my brother’s inquest last week,’ the lady on crutches replies, ‘they said he didn’t do it on purpose, so that’s something.’

By the time I get to the front of the queue, the shrimps are gone, so I ask for half a pint of prawns and, as Brian fills the pewter tankard—his name is printed on the street vendor’s licence, pinned above the weigh- ing scales—I ask him why markets are so special. ‘Community, isn’t it?’ he replies with a shrug. ‘I’ve got customers who’ve been coming 40 years, and it’s locality.’

There’s been street trading in Walworth since the 16th century and the market on East Street—the same street where Charlie Chaplin was born—has been running since 1880. But, in that time, London has lost a great many markets and part of the city’s soul has gone with them.

In Islington, from 1852–1939, the Caledonian Market, which sat on a 75-acre site, was a riptide of rags and riches. In her 1989 book