Street-Markets
in London

London Street-Markets are part of the English culture and way of life and can be experienced in many other parts of London.

High Street Shopping for example in Portobello Road, Brixton Market, Berwick Street, Leather Lane, Camden market and Petticoat lane, just to mention a few that are close to Underground Stations.

Walthamstow Market is about 10 miles north east of London, so I know the basic geography of this part of North East London which I used to call home. The street-market itself dates from 1885 and today is the centre of Walthamstow.

The Main Rail and Tube Stations are here with freqent service to London Liverpool Street Station from Walthamstow Station, and St. James Street Station at the other end of the High Street. Just across the street is the Bus Station and close by is the Post Office and Central Library in Church Hill.

Walthamstow Market is open 5 days a week (Tuesday - Saturday) and of course the High Street is a buzz of activity just as it was when I was younger. The Town Square is close to the main market and is home to the French market on some Saturday's.

On Sunday's the street-market is closed and is like a ghost town, with only a few shops and cafes open. Sunday morning the Town Square comes alive though, and is host to a farmers market quite close to the High Street.

The Walthamstow street-market stretches the entire length of the High Street, about one mile end to end and has about 500 stalls selling everything from 'fruit and veg', cheap clothes, kitchen and hardware items including a vacuum cleaner spares parts, all types of leather goods, and a few of the stalls sell music DVD's CD's.

One of London's increasingly rare pie and mash shops, L. Manze, opened in 1929 and still serves the traditional meat pie, mushy peas, 'liquor' (gravy) and mashed potatoes, with jellied eels on the side, as it did when I was younger. I returned to this area a couple of years ago, and the Pie and mash still tastes good as always.

I should mention, the seating in the Pie Shop are something to experience. The seats are bench type seats, and are only about 7" inches in depth. Obviously you don't stay very long.

The street market, or High Street as the locals refer to it, has a traditional cockney feel about it and somehow it's absorbing the influences from other diverse cultures from around the world.

Of course, there are many independent small shops who specialize in ethnic foods i.e. (Polish, Russian, Indian, Chinese, Caribbean, South Asian etc). Halal and English butchers are here, including fabrics, household goods etc. There are many cafes on the street market: English, Indian, Turkish, Portuguese, Chinese and others, and just two pubs on the High Street, the Chequers and the Cock Tavern.

Selborne Walk Mall is adjacent to the north end of the High Street. It's a much larger complex with shop frontages on the High Street with indoor shopping. Most of the shops are chain stores, the largest being British Home Stores "BHS" department store, and ASDA supermarket, a Walmart subsidiary.

The street market is lined with all types of shops too, from large to very small traditionally sized shops to very large supermarkets. Sainsbury's supermarket is set in a new development which includes a few other shops, which use the street frontage shared with Sainsbury's, and a two storey car park above.

Incidentally, the Walthamstow Street Market all started in the 19th century and was called; Marsh Street, a rural lane, and this lane was transformed into what is now called the High Street by Victorian expansion.

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