Shoulder of Mutton Field

The history of the urban butcher's shop is comparatively modern, and whilst particular districts in the Borough of Camden created in 1965 may be unfamiliar to some readers, their growth followed similar patterns elsewhere. It is not possible to profile every butchers shop and therefore Kentish Town has been chosen as representing the development of the trade. The story is not solely confined to statistics or even great events, but just as importantly the employees and customers, essential to their success. It was a time when meat was only second in importance to bread and customers regularly visited the retail butchers shop three or four times a week. Since that era events have decreed otherwise, and this particular style of shopping for meat, together with employment opportunities afforded by the retail butchers trade, has almost passed into history. The contents do not purport to be a definitive record of any particular business, rather a readable account of facts and associated material. Within the reader I hope will be pleasantly surprised to discover there is more to the retail butchers trade than a striped apron and two lamb chops.

Desmond C. Whyman is a former meat technologist at Smithfield College and a graduate member of the Institute of Meat. He is the author of A Good Name: Camden Town to Canterbury and a contributor to official periodical of the Worshipful Company of Butchers.