Penkridge Market

Wednesday is market day in Penkridge and for a small town it has a very large market. Larger, in fact, these days than my home town of Hereford, where the retail market used to be held on the cattle market site and which never recovered when the it had to be closed down and quarantined during the Foot and Mouth epidemic ten years ago.
I'm a sucker for street markets -  although I rarely actually buy anything!  - so, after turning the boat round and attending to the water cans and toilet cassette it was off to town we went.

The market site is just off the main road through the town and, as you can see from the photo is partly covered and part open air.

Fuit and veg, meat, clothes, tools and the usual range of, it has to be said, cheap tat were all on offer,
but there's also a poultry auction - something Hereford market used to make a big feature of before the fall.

Here we see a couple of punters sizing up what's on offer.
Markets generally are struggling as more and more people seem to actually prefer to shop at the likes of Tesco. I enjoyed a morning at Penkridge market - a unique experience: a visit to Penkridge Tesco, were there to be such a thing, would just be a chore.