Travel Writing Class Assignment - An Excursion in Clerkenwell

‘The Butcher, the baker, the candle-stick maker…’ - the song remained most appropriately stuck in my head as Tanya and I returned from a series of distinct discoveries on a ‘barely guided’ excursion in Clerkenwell.

I insist ‘barely guided’ as we began by trooping behind confident Jonathan who said he would ‘lead’ us to Smithfield Market, the oldest meat market in London. Lead us he did, and then promptly disappeared.

Almost a thousand years old, Smithfield market is steeped as much in history as in temperature-controlled units of meat and poultry. The plaques lining the market-walls let you in on riveting moments from its past - the execution of heretics, the hanging of William Wallace-the Scottish revolutionary, air raids in World war 1. If you are at odds with the Missus, take a nostalgic sigh…Wife sales were commonplace here in the 19th century, divorce considered too challenging and time-consuming!

The market is now a far cry from its grim descriptions in Charles Dicken’s ‘Oliver Twist’. Livestock are not slaughtered here anymore; the market is more a massive point of sales and storage. The architecture is almost pretty, and the community board attempts a cheery message – ‘Lets’ MEAT’! But the vegetarian in me is fast recoiling from the unmistakeably meaty smells and I deftly turn Tanya away.

Piqued by a dark alley to the right of the market, some footsteps away, we reach the entrance to a church; the brass plate on the gate quietly reminds us that we are in front of the Priory of St.Bartholomew, built in 1123 AD. Perhaps it was because the church clock chimed the precise moment we reached, or the stark isolation the little benches in the court yard offered, we remained rooted, touching the engraved walls and shivering in the darkness. I wondered at the generations that must have thronged here to pray, to plead? I now know though that this Anglican Church is still very much active and has even played host to Hollywood flicks like Four Weddings and a Funeral, and Shakespeare in Love.

The main lanes of St.John’s street itself felt much more ‘CITY’- almost 55 pubs contending across a mile’s stretch. From Tim-Tim’s to The Lone Greek, the Mustard to the more prosaic St.John’s street restaurant (reknowned for its Nose to Tail Cooking!) – the names of pubs have always intrigued me and I mentally resolve to research the correlation between their names, clientele and cash-registers at a far-away point in time.

More right turns and we are back where we started, torn between wanting to explore more on an increasingly cold October evening and the warm confines of Travel writing class.


Kusum,