At the time of writing there were a few old wooden market barrows near the pedestrian access to Leake Street. These once-loved and carefully maintained mobile market stalls now sit in amongst a lot of rubbish and hence have been attracted the graffiti taggers.
On closer inspection I noticed that the original barrow owners' names and addresses or market locations can be seen carved into the wooden frames. And every one has somewhere on it, 'On Hire'.
I am still trying to fully decipher some the names because the hand-carved scripts are hard to read – note the non-joined areas within the m and h of 'Lambeth'.
Of the road names, Fitzalan Street (shown bottom right) is just a short walk away from Lower Marsh, ditto Lambeth Walk which was also a bustling market street decades ago but today shows no real signs of life today. But, so far, I cannot find out anything about Topaz Street, shown second on the bottom row. Holland St, top right, is a bit further away in Southwark at Bankside.
The owners' names are even harder to decipher; possibly 'A Heehn' (second, top), A H Pelin (top right), M J Tala... (middle right). Any ideas?
And how old are these barrows? When do they date back to? If they aren't going to be used any more what's going to happen to them?
