Petticoat Lane Market

On Sunday, as part of our Photographing East London Markets class we were back out on the streets east of the city of London. Yes, it is a world apart from the leafy Regent’s Park part of town we inhabit. After visiting the Columbia Road Flower Market and another brief return to Brick Lane (in the sunshine this time!) we moved on to our last market. Petticoat Lane Market located on Wentworth and Middlesex Street has been around as an informal market since 1608, and is one of three well known markets east of the City of London (not formally recognized until an Act of Parliament in 1936). A few hundred yards to the north is Old Spitalfields market, and across Commercial Street, to the east, lies Brick Lane Market. A half mile further east is the Columbia Road Flower market.

Huguenots fleeing persecution arrived here in the late 17th century settling mostly in Spitalfields. From the mid-18th century, Petticoat Lane became a centre for manufacturing clothes and The Lane' is renowned for the 'patter' of Cockney rhyming slang and the market traders themselves. The market is open Monday-to-Friday on Wentworth Street alone, but on Sunday extends over many of the surrounding streets, with over 1000 stalls. It closes on Sundays at about 2 pm, and is closed on Saturday.

Petticoat Lane was the least pleasant of the three markets we visited over these past two Sundays. This market really isn’t a tourist attraction. We were warned several times how unsafe the area is! It is not a place I would go back to again. The stall holders really dislike having their picture taken and are quite vocal about it. We met one in the form of a chestnut seller! To be honest I did buy a pashmina but wouldn’t buy any other types of clothing here. Just not me and I was happy to leave.

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The Columbia Road Flower Market

The Columbia Road Flower Market is off the Hackney Road in the Tower Hamlets. This is where Jeff and I spent a lovely autumn day on the second day of our Photographing East London Markets class. The weather was warm and sunny so much better than our rainy excursion to Brick Lane last Sunday! The Columbia Road Flower Market was one of the very first car trips we made when we moved to London ten years ago. It gets overwhelming crowded in the summer and we have stopped going preferring to go to the New Convent Garden Market early on a Saturday morning. We did manage a bagel before class though..
Much of Columbia road is part of the Jesus Green Hospital Estate. The market is open every Sunday from 8 am to 2 pm. A wide range of wonderful plants, bedding plants, shrubs, bulbs and freshly cut flowers are available. The market also has a number of shops selling bread and cheeses, antiques and garden accessories. Jeff and I own not one but two "Columbia Carriers"; an inexpensive plastic/fabric bag with a large flat base for carrying trays of plants.
The original market was established in 1869 as a covered food market, by Angela Burdett-Coutts with 400 stalls; with flats above, in a tall Gothic building. A planned railway line was never built with traders preferring to sell outdoors anyway causing the market to close in 1886; the original building was demolished in 1958.

The market was moved to Sunday, by Act of Parliament, in order to accommodate the needs of local Jewish traders. This also provided the opportunity for Covent Garden and Spitalfields traders to sell their stock left over from Saturday. The enduring love for cut flowers and plants amongst people in the East End was introduced by Huguenot immigrants. The market suffered in World War II, from rules prioritizing food production, and went into a long decline. A large civilian shelter, beneath the market, suffered a direct hit by a 50 kg bomb, on the night of Saturday, 7 September 1940, at the height of The Blitz.

Spoonful o Blues

One of the things I got to do while I was back in the states was to see my cousin Bruce's band play on Long Island. The music was terrific and a good time was had by all!

Photographing East London - Brick Lane

Brick Lane (Bangla: ব্রিক লেন) (as you can see in the picture) is a long street in the Tower Hamlets, in the East End of London. The street runs from Bethnal Green in the north, and passes through Spitalfields (where we began our photography class). The Brick Lane Market, developed in the 17th century for fruit and vegetables, sold outside the city. The Sunday market, like the ones on Petticoat Lane and nearby Columbia Road, dates from a dispensation given to the Jewish community. Brick Lane is now it the heart of the city's Sylheti Bangladeshi community, and is sometimes known as Banglatown.
The street was formerly called Whitechapel Lane. Emma Elizabeth Smith was viciously assaulted in Osborn Street, the part of Brick Lane that meets Whitechapel High Street, on 3 April 1888. It was one of the first of the eleven Whitechapel Murders, some of which were attributed to the serial killer, Jack the Ripper. Brick Lane derives its current name from former brick and tile manufacture, using the local brick earth deposits, that began in the 15th century.
Immigration began with Huguenot refugees spreading from Spitalfields, where the master weavers were based, in the 17th century. They were followed by Irish weavers, Ashkenazi Jews and, in the last century, Bangladeshis. The area became a centre for weaving, tailoring and the clothing industry, due to the abundance of semi- and unskilled immigrant labour.
The changing face of Brick Lane can be told by a Huguenot chapel which was built on the corner of Brick Lane and Fournier Street in 1742. By 1809, it had become The Jews’ Chapel, for promoting Christianity to the expanding Jewish population. In 1898, the building was consecrated as the Machzikei HaDath, or Spitalfields Great Synagogue. It became the London Jamme Masjid mosque in 1976.


Brewing came to Brick Lane before 1680, with water drawn from deep wells. One brewer was Joseph Truman, who is first recorded in 1683, but his family, particularly Benjamin Truman, went on to establish the Black Eagle Brewery.
Brick Lane to me is the London home of bagels. As every one knows you can’t get good bagels outside NYC but 10 years ago when we first moved here, this was the only place you could get a rough approximation. . I had a bagel on Sunday in one of the remaining shops and it was extremely disappointing. Bagels are widely available now everywhere. The bagels sold at my local Sainsbury are better.
You should have seen the queue though!

Photographing East London - Spitalfield Market

Jeff and I have gone back to school! Well, not really. We are taking a two day photography class at City Lit called Photographing East London. Jeff is an excellent photographer so he has come along as a refresher course with me. Last year, we bought a really nice Nikon digital camera to take on our trip to Tanzania and I never use it because it baffles me with all these menus and dials!

This class is on two consecutive Sundays. Yesterday was day one. I have to tell you, it was one of the worst days in London to be outside doing photography. It was a dark and rainy day. As they say here, it was tipping it down…………….. another words- pouring!

After a short classroom lecture, the whole class (about 8 of us!) headed to the Old Spitalfields Market, a covered market in East London (as you would suspect from the name of the course!). The existing buildings were built in 1887 on the site of a public market founded in 1682 by Charles II . The former wholesale fruit and veg market moved way in the early 1990’s. Spitalfields now sells clothes, stuff and a bit of everything really. There are many restaurants as well as fresh food market stalls.

The market was very crowded and it was hard to photograph. Later when Jeff and I were discussing the class we talked about the difficulties of taking good pictures of people. I learned a lot about film speed, shutter speed and apertures in getting to grips with this camera. One of the lessons I learned yesterday is that I should have gotten closer to the subjects. I felt very shy and intrusive about it. I relied more on a longer lens and photo- editing to get the pictures I wanted. Class mates had quite a few run-ins with security while taking photographs yesterday. I will never make it the paparazzi business! Next week, we are going to the uncovered Columbia Road Flower Market. Hopefully the weather will be better.