Fleet Street, London 1981

This 1981 view looks east along Fleet Street towards St Paul’s Cathedral, with the great dome rising above a canyon of traffic, newspaper offices and commercial buildings. The street is dressed with bunting, flags and celebratory decorations for the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer, whose route to St Paul’s passed this way, placing the photograph very close to the event itself. Everyday London continues beneath the festive display, with red double-decker buses, black cabs, vans, a red pillar box and dense slow-moving traffic filling the street, while a banner reading Congratulations! can be seen further ahead. The contrast between the royal occasion and the ordinary congestion of Fleet Street gives the scene much of its appeal, capturing a moment when one of London’s busiest thoroughfares briefly became part of a national celebration while still looking unmistakably like the working newspaper district of the early 1980s.