Brick Lane Market

You can buy most things in Brick Lane market. From fruit and veg to wire hangers and broken records. Not scratched but broken. If your bike ever gets nicked it's a sure bet that you will be able to buy it back down Brick Lane

Blackmans is just off of Brick Lane and sell a fine selection of Doctor Martins and other industrial boots and shoes. A favorite haunt of 70's skinheads this shop now specialise in 'plimsoles'.

East End art

 

Brick Lane's finest.

 

 

 

Bermondsey

This blog once bemoaned the fact that there are no great songs about London to compare with Jay-Z’s, Empire State of Mind and I guess this clip proves the point. But could Alicia Keys belt out an opening line with as much gusto as Sid James “Oh, Oh, Oh....”. Tony may have left his heart in San Francisco and Frank wanted to make it in New York but it’s the happy, laughing, razor slashed faces of the people of Bermondsey that tug at Sid’s heart strings. The clip also provides a small glimpse of a fully working dock in the Pool of London that has now disappeared.

A hat tree

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A hat tree in Marylebone High Street

The Shard from the Mayflower

These pictures are taken from the jetty of the Mayflower pub in Rotherhithe. The Shard keeps growing but is still only a third of it's eventual height. It is starting to impose itself on old familiar skylines such as this from the Mayflower.

A Thames barge sails past heading east to the sea.

 

Columbia Market

Columbia Flower Market is in the East End of London on Columbia Road.

Originally built as a Victorian gothic folly by the banking heiress Angela Burdett-Coutts in 1869 it opened as a fish market. It was never popular with the costermongers as she imposed rules on working on Sunday and expected them to “be sober, be vigilant, be pitiful, be courteous”. It was never going to work and they started trading in the street. The building was demolished in 1958.

The East Ends interest in flowers is thought to stem from the immigrant Huguenot community. They were also fascinated with bird song and there is a pub in Columbia Road called The Birdcage.

The market originally opened on a Saturday but this changed to Sunday due to the growing Jewish population. This allowed Covent Garden and Spitalfield traders to use the market to sell off their left over’s. The area went into decline during the war as food production took priority and the area was due for demolition in the 70’s. Fortunately it was saved by the local’s and is once again a thriving Sunday market.

The Victorian houses and shops are now home to a diverse range of traders that include coffee shops, vintage clothing shops and art galleries.

This must be the only place in London where you can buy lavender for a “fiver with free bees thrown in”.

Swimming the Thames

Matthew Parris "I Took On The Thames"