The coffee-stall keepers appeared carrying cans of coffee from yokes on their shoulders, the little smudge-pot charcoal fires already lit underneath, winking in the diminishing darkness. Interspersed with these suppliers and produce sellers were many more who made their living around and in the markets. More approached Covent Garden from the south, from the market gardens that lined the south-west side of the river. Lights are being lit ‘in the upper windows of public houses – not the inhabitants retiring to rest, but of active proprietors preparing … for the new day … The roadway is already blocked up, and the by-streets are rapidly filling.'īy dawn, the streets leading into London were regularly filled with carriages, with carts laden with goods, and with long lines of men and women (mostly women), plodding down Piccadilly, along Green Park, on their way to Covent Garden, carrying heavy baskets of fruit on their heads as they walked from the market gardens in Fulham several miles away. Long lines of carts and vans and costermongers' barrows are forming in the surrounding streets. By this hour at Covent Garden market, in the centre of London, the streets are alive. It is still night, but it is also ‘tomorrow'.
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