The Shambles, once the street of the butchers (and slaughterhouses), is now a pedestrianised tourist shopping street, allegedly the most visited in Europe.

'I wish you could see the Shambles as it was forty years ago, when nine out of every ten of the shops in the street were butchers' shops; or sixty-odd years ago, when my mother used to take me with her on her Saturday nights' marketing expeditions; see the crowds of shoppers, the lights, the hubbub, the multitudinous dogs; see the cattle and sheep being driven along the street on a weekday, the manoeuvering to get a terrified bullock up a side passage to a slaughter house behind the shop; see the butchers skilfully dressing carcases in their shop doorways; then you would know better what the Shambles was like throughout the eight centuries and more of its active life, when it really lived up to its name.' (Ref. 6, p85)

A small passage on the left leads into the Newgate Market.