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.
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