The iron arrived at half past six on Thursday morning, on a flatbed cart drawn by two horses that showed no interest whatsoever in the significance of their cargo. Twelve sheets of galvanised iron, each measuring approximately three metres by one, stacked on timber runners and secured with rope.

By eight o’clock, the first sheet had been hoisted to the scaffolding platform above the eastern wing. By nine, it was being fixed into position by a crew of four, working with the methodical efficiency of men who have bolted iron to timber roofs many times before.

Phase 3 of the Bramblegate Market roof repair — the final phase — has begun.

“The timber’s solid,” said Hendricks, site foreman for Hallam & Stroud, surveying the new joist framework from the scaffolding with the appraising look of a man who trusts his own work but checks it anyway. “We replaced the three rotten ones and sistered two more for good measure. The iron will seat properly.”

Phase 1 — stripping the damaged galvanised sheeting and the tarred felt beneath — was completed in the first week. Phase 2 revealed the three rotten joists that added 1,800 florins and three days to the project. The additional cost brought the total to 16,000 florins, which the Municipal Markets Board approved without enthusiasm but without delay.

Phillip Catton, the Market Warden, has been visiting the site daily with a clipboard and an expression of studied patience. “The eastern wing has been under canvas for a month,” he said. “Canvas is not a roof. I have said this before, and I will say it again until it is no longer true.”

The twelve stalls displaced by the repair — including Raymond Keel’s fish stall, which has operated from the eastern wing for twenty-six years — remain in temporary positions along the market’s southern arcade. Keel, who conducts his trade with the same volume whether under iron or canvas, reported that his customers have found him without difficulty.

“Fish is fish,” he observed. “People follow the smell.”

Hendricks estimates that the iron sheeting will take eight to ten working days to complete, followed by two days for the drainage channels and ridge capping. Revised completion: 18 April, as previously announced.

“Barring weather,” he added, glancing at a sky that offered no particular promise either way.

The permanent repair will restore the eastern wing’s full capacity for the first time since the March gales tore the original sheeting. When the scaffolding comes down, Bramblegate Market — which has operated continuously since its charter in 1926 — will have a roof that is, in Hendricks’s assessment, “good for another fifty years, if nobody puts tarred felt under it this time.”

Catton made a note on his clipboard.