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I’ve always been interested in the massive livestock market on York way.. it got pulled down in the 60’s and turned into a park and a housing estate. The clock tower and the railings on market road are still there

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The daily mail comments section is going mad about it, plenty of people enjoyed the cultural tourism of watching men in bloodstained overalls have a pint at 7.30 am.
I bet they’ve all been buying their meat from supermarkets for the past 30 years so they can all fuck off.

Disagree about spitalfields market. Tho I lived in the new low rise student halls in 94, and the whole are was cheap and run down. The area was also a red light district by the bagel shops and look at it now.

I used to stroll in there all the time, didn't realise it wasn't allowed.

Not as if you could turn up and buy meat...as you can at the fish market.

Years ago my work's Christmas party ended up at the Lucky Voice next to Smithfield so when we were booted out at whatever time it closed I had a little wander around the market. I would not recommend this experience. I then ran back home to Hackney Central which was also ill-advised and felt like shit in the office the next day.

The point for me is the Corporation backing out of a deal, fucking over not just the businesses involved, but also Dagenham council.

... Lucky Voice next to Smithfield ... I then ran back home to Hackney Central

There's something about that place (Smithfield Lucky Voice) then. I ended up there after a friends party and decided to walk home to SW15. Took a couple of hours but I was considerably less hungover the next day because of it.

You can tho.

Thought it was wholesale only, as I tried to buy a small pig once, but couldn't find anyone to sell me one.

Also didn't know you could just buy two or three steaks.

Some sellers in Billingsgate also operate on a wholesale only basis - plenty of people selling fish by the box. Smithfields did have far more wholesale-only sellers (i.e. whole primal) vs sellers who had portioned down for consumers, though, so that's probably where your impression came from! Definitely did have some stalls that operated almost like delis though.

People forget how rough Spitalfields was in the 90s. I remember being dropped off there at 3am just next to the Hawksmoor Church, with hours to kill before the tubes started running again. It was absolutely brutal - I'd had no sleep, and it was freezing. It felt like Kings Cross but without the exhilarating sense of danger. Eventually one of the sex workers took pity on us and pointed us to an all night cafe, where we hung out with a pensioner until the sun rose, but it was utterly bleak. We were only 25 years away from the Spitalfields of David Granick and you really felt it. A world away from now https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/ace/standard/976/cpsprodpb/26CC/production/_100123990_hmp_eastendincolour_7_low.jpg.webp

Thank you for sharing this. I didn't know it was there, but I have always been curious about the clock tower as I passed through. Presumably the market road pitches were also once covered by the site? From the perspective of that etching the pitches would be in the foreground of that picture now.

I think there was a variety of different buildings. Livestock pens, market halls, slaughterhouses etc.. massive site, over 20 acres I think. it was built to take live animals when it became impractical to have them at Smithfield’s, about 1850

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It was called Caledonian Market and you're right that it was because of the difficulty of having cattle in the City; it was also because of the opening of a new goods station nearby, industrialising the transport of cattle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Cattle_Market

So the bullock lairs were on the current pitches

French Bond Markets

Can someone with more insight then me confirm if this will screw the Euro and in turn GBP?

When I first came to London, found it amazingly different to anything I had ever experienced before. Had experienced Milan and Turin at night but nothing touched London.

Wanted to go round with a camera but far to scared of anyone saying anything to me.

Why are you wearing a cassock?

It made for some hilarious motorcycling when I was a courier. Blood and fat on a worn out road surface with cobbles peeping through, plus sharp corners and a steep gradient.

Black diamond run, that

Spitalfieldslife website is worth a browse, huge archive of stuff and a real insight into the history of the area and its people.
https://spitalfieldslife.com/

I, for one, am shocked, shocked I tell you, that Greg Wallace is handsy.

Sluttery ribald base.

All the papers cravenly saying he has 'stepped away' from the programme. He's been suspended, you mealy-mouthed fucks.

it's always the ones you most suspect