Watney
Market
In the early years of the 20th century the shops and stalls of Watney Street, making up Watney Market, was one of the liveliest local markets in London: in 1902 there were over 100 shops and 100 stalls. Here are some pictures from that period and later.
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By 1928 the number of stalls had more than doubled, and Christ Church Watney Street joined with other local churches in opposing the renewal of licences for shops and stalls, including Sainsbury's (who had arrived there forty years earlier, in the days when they were predominantly local traders), because they were trading on Sundays. This was an issue for churches elsewhere in the parish - see ST JOHN-THE-EVANGELIST. But despite the illegality, licences continued to be issued. A compromise was attempted with the Shops (Sunday Trading Restriction Act) 1936 - superseded by the 1950 Shops Act - but this proved broadly unenforceable in heavily Jewish areas. [The middle picture shows Johnny Philipps' rabbit stall in 1949.]
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By the 1960s Watney Market was in decline: people were moving away, and beginning to shop elsewhere. By the end of the decade only a handful of stalls was left. Here are scenes from 1968.
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Sites were cleared for redevelopment - housing and a new market - but it was slow in coming. Sainsbury's eventually moved away (their site is now occupied by Iceland), and by 1979 there were only eighteen stalls left.
Twenty years on, the rebuilding is now more or less finished, and the area has been expensively landscaped, but its character has gone. [Pictures from 1982 and 2009.] But Tower Hamlets Council currently has plans to regenerate the market, increasing the number of stalls and making them more attractive, widening the range of goods on sale and catering facilities, both for local people and as a 'venue' for those who work nearby (eg at News International) or who will be passing through now that the East London line has re-opened as part of London Overground in June 2010; they will also add a neighbourhood Ideas Store. We await developments....|
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