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 FLOWER POWER
It’s 6.55 am on a cold, drizzly, Sunday morning. Oblivious to the weather,
a group of late revellers wait for The Nelsons Head to open. Round the corner, trucks roll
up. They have been coming in for an hour or so from places like Reading, Billericay,
King’s Lynn. Name anything to do with gardens and they are loaded with it: bedding
plants, cut flowers, compost, fruit trees, herbs, house plants, shrubs, soil. The traders
have long been resigned to a Saturday night in to be here for their most important trading
day of the week at London’s biggest flower and plant retail market, Columbia Road.
Columbia Road market was originally part of a development financed in the
mid-nineteenth century by the wealthy philanthropist Baroness Angela Burdett-Coutts. The
baroness financed the slum clearance east of Shoreditch church and erected Columbia Square
Buildings to provide low rent accommodation for 183 families. She then turned her
attention to the Cockney costermongers and stallholders who appalled her by their
dishonesty. She believed the way to improve ethical standards was to provide a
purpose-built, indoor market that would regulate trading.
The result, seven years later in 1869, was a huge mock-Gothic market building,
decorated inside with moralistic aphorisms such as ‘Speak everyman truth with his
neighbour.’ However, it was a complete failure and the small traders remained
outside. The building was returned to the baroness within five years and subsequently let
out as workshops.
Jim, who was born in Brick Lane, and now runs a cafe at the end of the Columbia Road,
remembers its demolition and replacement by a block of flats in 1960. Today, the oldest
trader is 87-year-old Fred Harnett who has been selling plants in Columbia Road since he
came with his dad when he was ten. Like many of the stallholders, having a pitch in
Columbia Road is a family affair. Fred still drives his own truck in every Sunday morning
from Billericay and flogs trays of bedding plants with undiminished enthusiasm. For Fred
and many of the other old timers the way of trading has changed profoundly.
What was once a market supplied by a cottage industry, where flowers and plants came
from local nurseries on a seasonal basis, is now a year-round international business. Most
of what you see on sale today in Columbia Road - and many other retail outlets - comes
from the same source, the gigantic Dutch plant and flower emporium of Aalsmeer just
outside of Amsterdam. Retailing shops may buy from wholesalers in New Covent Garden or
Spitalfields but the traders in Columbia Road, keen to cut out the middleman, go once a
week to Aalsmeer to buy for their Sunday trade.
And there’s no doubt, compared to other retail outlets, buying in Columbia Road is
good value but, as many stalls sell the same product sourced from the same place, variety
in pure plant terms is limited and you will be hard pressed to find anything really
unusual or rare. Traders say the market has survived because of the peripheral items; the
decorated pots or the accessory knick-knacks in the bijou shops. It’s these add-ons
that have helped to keep it going all year round. Dennis, who’s been trading  here for 30 years, says people seem to be buying more plants than
ever before and offers up the logical explanation that more people live in flats without
gardens. Plus we no longer see flowers as a luxury item but as a interior design
necessity.
At 10.30 the crowd, despite the weather, is thickening and Fred’s vocal chords are
finally warming up. ‘Two boxes of lovely pansies for one!’ Trading officially
ceases at 2.00 pm. Those who want a bargain arrive for the last minute ditching of stock.
Why did Baroness Coutts get it wrong? The traders without doubt resented the
patronising attitude levelled at them and almost certainly recoiled from notions of
regulation and interfering bureaucracy; I was asked several times in the space of 15
minutes if I was from the Inland Revenue. More importantly, I think it’s hard to
imagine the baroness haggling over the price of a pound of Cox’s Orange Pippins with
a costermonger. And if she did, it seems she missed the spirit of street trading. Street
traders here are probably sharper than most because trade is swift and they have to be on
their feet.
I’m back at Dennis’ stall and he has some beautiful red lilies for £6 a
bunch. The punter says ‘I’ll give you £10 for two bunches.’
‘You’re robbing me, girl!’ he replies, but he’s smiling. |
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