These works were a preoccupation arising from many sketches made at Smithfield meat market. The large sculpture commissioned for the centre of Harlow Market Square was developed from these small sculptures.  It was among the first group of public sculptures to be 'Listed' by English Heritage.

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'In these extraordinary works, so tender, ephemeral and vulnerable and yet so hard, so tough and calculated with such ruthless precision, in these inventions we have Brown's best work so far. . .. Everything he touches is charged by this sensibility: passionate, humane and with the courage to resist easy or obvious eloquence; to be on occasion awkward or ugly, and to remain unconscious of the art gallery piece, the temporary exhibition contrivance which disfigures so much of the sculptural scene in England.'
        Bryan Robertson, Art in the Making,  Granada TV 1962