By the 1960s “a cacophony of whimpers, yaps, yelps, and just plain barking guides you to the spot where Bethnal Green Road branches off to Sclater Street,” Webb writes. The pub in question was the Knave of Clubs – now an upmarket restaurant called Les Trois Garçons where the “wildlife is taxidermy”.Īs time progressed dogs and other animals were eventually sold alongside the caged birds. “It was an extraordinary sight, this marvellous old pub full of stacked up cages of exotic screeching birds” comments Derek Brown on the Spitalfields Life blog. The crowd in the narrow street is so dense that you can gather no idea of what is in the shop-windows or what the mob of men crowding together in black patches of humanity are dealing in.”Īnd the market wasn’t restricted to the street either. At first you see nothing but the avenue of bird-cages. Sims described the market as follows: “On Sunday nothing but bird-cages are to be seen from roofs to pavement in almost every house. Writing in the early 20th Century, George R. This was a legacy of the French Huguenots who immigrated to the area after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 and had the custom of keeping canaries and various singing birds. Imagine that – lion cubs for sale on the streets of Shoreditch.įrom its humble beginnings as a place where farmers could trade outside the city walls, Club Row market spread down Sclater Street and initially developed into a bird market. Dogs, cats, birds, chickens, snakes, gerbils, guinea pigs – even monkeys and lion cubs could be found there.
‘E’s worth double, lady, but I want ‘im to ‘ave a good ‘ome’ or ‘Here’s a good dog, born between the sheets, got his pedigree in my pocket!’ ‘Who’d care for a German sausage? – stretch him to make up the rations,’ the salesman with the dachshund said.”Ĭlub Row Market was London’s one and only live animal market. “ ‘Hi, mate, buy a dog to keep you warm!’ said the man with the Chows to a pair of shivering Lascar seamen. Kaye Webb provides a vivid account of the trading techniques in her 1953 book Looking at London and People Worth Meeting.
But at the Club Row Animal Market – just north of Bethnal Green Road – you would have simply been fed what you wanted to hear. In most cases the pet shop owner will run you through the pros and cons, the pedigree and the breed. The cuteness of a terrier, or the leanness of a whippet? The stature of a labrador or the Englishness of a bulldog?
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