Smithfield

Another blip close to, but not quite in, my One Street. I'm standing in the Grand Avenue of Smithfield Meat Market, which runs across the end of Cowcross Street.

The great clean-up is nearly over. It happens every morning. Huge refrigerated lorries roll into Smithfield late at night and unload wholesale meat. Then in the middle of the night the butchers, chefs and their suppliers turn up in white vans (literally hundreds of them) and buy their meat. Then the cleansing department clean-up and hose-down.

The Grand Avenue runs down the centre of the 1868 market building and has a brightly painted, elliptical, cast iron roof and clock. The Victorian market replaced the open air livestock market that had been on the site for 700 years. The Great North Road, which went to the north of England and eventually to Edinburgh, traditionally began at Smithfield and mileages were measured from here.