Tin Pan Alley & Our Lady of Mount Carmel: Sunday 16th July 2006 I went to the Tin Pan Alley Festival in Denmark Street, a short street off the Charing Cross Road, for many years the centre of the UK popular music industry, but now sadly declined. There are still some shops selling instruments, but the music publishers, newspapers and most recording studios have disappeared, and much redevelopment has taken place, including behind some of the seventeenth century and later facades.
It was a crowded and very noisy event and I found little to photograph, soon leaving for Clerkenwell to photograph the annual Italian festival there.
The 2026 Procession in Honour of Our Lady of Mount Carmel takes place this Sunday, July 19, 2026 at 3:30 but the street festival there begins around noon and continues long after the procession. It’s an event I’ve photographed many years since I first knew about it in the 1990s, but this year I think it will be far to hot for me to travel and work there.
Here as usual is what I wrote back in 2006 with normal capitalisation and spelling corrections, along with a few of my favourite images and links to the many others still on My London Diary.
Tin Pan Alley Festival
Denmark Street
Not a lot to say about the Tin Pan Alley Festival in Denmark Street. It was noisy, fun if you like that kind of thing (but 15 minutes was long enough for me) and for a good cause.
Denmark Street is perhaps more interesting on other days, I must take my “famous” (allegedly ex-beatle) guitar in for repair sometime.
Procession in Honour of Our Lady Of Mount Carmel
St Peter’s Italian Church, Clerkenwell
The Italian Church festival is one of the great events of the London calendar, which fortunately hasn’t yet been noticed by too many non-Italians.
The Procession In Honour Of Our Lady Of Mount Carmel Attracts several thousands. Good food, good wine and Italian beer along with other things for sale, colourful statues, and a cast list that included Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus, the Four Evangelists and many more, all parading through the streets around St Peter’s Church in Clerkenwell.
At the end of the procession is Our Lady Of Mount Carmel and the priests; as they join it, doves are released and the crowd of parishioners joins in a solemn procession of witness around the streets.
There are very many pictures from the event beginning here on My London Diary and spread over around a dozen pages, beginning with a number from the Sagra, the street festival in the street below the church. This continues with music and dancing ofter the procession (as well as eating and drinking) but in 2006 I needed to leave rather than continue photographing.
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