London’s streets are changing. Gleaming monoliths of glass and steel are replacing dilapidated retail spaces, filled with chain stores who spend millions developing brands that emulate the ‘local charm’ of the independent businesses they replace. Even the markets, once the staple of working class London, have become the domain of the middle class yuppie.
Yet, tucked away in a discreet corner of Holloway, North London, is a market which so far seems to have escaped the ominous march of gentrification. The Nag’s Head Covered Market, on Seven Sisters road is a small collection of around 60 stalls, both temporary and permanent, that has been in the area for 25 years.
I spent two months documenting the comings and goings of life in the market. What I witnessed was a rare thing in today’s London: genuine humanity, warts and all.
