A fading bill poster stuck to a wall at Smithfield Market in London.
Smithfields is the location of the meat market in London. The market itself is housed in an old-fashioned building that it not really fit for purpose! It's too small, too old and in set in small streets that don't fit the 40 tonne articulated lorries that come from all over Europe to deliver fresh produce.
The market is open all night long to supply shops with meat in time for opening in the morning.
It's a place of all-night cafes staffed by Lithuanians trying to earn money to send to families back home. It has pubs that open at 6am to sell beer to the market workers when they finish their shifts. The pubs are popular with other night workers, such as police, who fancy a drink or two to unwind before they head home to bed to sleep through the day.
It is only a matter of time before the demands of business and the modern world catch up with Smithfields, and it relocates to some characterless corrugated purpose-built industrial estate, and so losing it's soul forever.
