Day 17 & 18 - London markets

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Saturday, August 17 was a typical partly cloudy, drizzly off and on kind of day but reasonably warm. We decided to do the market, on Broadway Market, today which runs from about 8AM to 4PM and is just around the corner from our house.

Barrow boys have been welcoming shoppers to Broadway Market in Hackney since the 1890s, selling everything from bacon to beans. There are 100 or more stalls offering various produce, food, clothing, art, flowers and other vendors and a couple blocks of Broadway Market is closed off for the day for this to take place.

We took our time, making our way through all of the vendors for an hour or so before starting to buy some fresh, organic produce and chicken for supper. We bought some great take-away food to carry home for lunch when we were done strolling the vendors.

The rest of the afternoon was taken up with me napping. 😊 Chris busied herself in the kitchen, cooking up a fabulous dinner for us from our purchases at the market.

Sunday, August 18 we all decided to check out Columbia Flower Market and Camden Market. Columbia Road flower market and shops are open on Sundays from 8am ’til 3'ish come rain, wind or shine and even on Easter Sunday. Columbia Road is in the East End, about a 20 minute walk from our house in Hackney.

On Sunday the street is transformed into oasis of foliage and flowers. Everything from bedding plants to 10 foot banana trees are up for grabs. The air is intense with the scent of flowers and the chant of the barrow boys "Everthin' a fiver"?

A lot of the flower sellers grow their own plants or import flowers from around the world.

Composed of sixty independent shops, small art galleries sit next to cup cake shops, vintage clothes stores, English and Italian delis, garden and antique shops. There is also a wealth of great pubs, cafes and restaurants.

It was a fun and colourful walk through a very thick crowd of shoppers then we headed off to find the nearest tube station only to find that the train and bus going to Camden Town was closed for the day for maintenance. So we headed into the City to see the Bank of England and all the beautiful old financial buildings surrounding it.

After this we caught the tube over to Hyde and Kensington Parks. Hyde Park is one of the largest parks in central London, and one of the Royal Parks of London, famous for its Speakers' Corner.

The park was the site of the Great Exhibition of 1851, for which the Crystal Palace was designed by Joseph Paxton. The park has become a traditional location for mass demonstrations. The Chartists, the Reform League, the Suffragettes and the Stop The War Coalition have all held protests in the park. Many protesters on the Liberty and Livelihood March in 2002 started their march from Hyde Park. On 20 July 1982 in the Hyde Park and Regents Park bombings, two bombs linked to the Provisional Irish Republican Army caused the death of eight members of the Household Cavalry and the Royal Green Jackets and seven horses.

The park is divided in two by the Serpentine. The park is contiguous with Kensington Gardens; although often still assumed to be part of Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens has been technically separate since 1728, when Queen Caroline made a division between the two. Hyde Park covers 142 hectares (350 acres) and Kensington Gardens covers 111 hectares (270 acres), giving an overall area of 253 hectares (630 acres), making the combined area larger than the Principality of Monaco (196 hectares or 480 acres), though smaller than New York City's Central Park (341 hectares or 840 acres).

Kensington Gardens, once the private gardens of Kensington Palace, is one of the Royal Parks of London, lying immediately to the west of Hyde Park. It is shared between the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, lying within western central London. The park covers an area of 111 hectares (270 acres).

Kensington Gardens was carved out of the western section of Hyde Park and designed c.1728–1738 by Henry Wise and Charles Bridgeman, with fashionable features including the Round Pond, formal avenues and a sunken Dutch garden and the more recently constructed Princess Diana Memorial Fountain.

It was a beautiful afternoon for a walk in the parks and there were hundreds of families and groups of friends enjoying picnics, sitting in the rental chairs just snoozing or enjoying the view, or having their say at Speaker's Corner.

We made our way home after this long day of walking to relax, have dinner and plan our trip to Bath tomorrow.

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Comments

[Elaine Hall]

flowers, banks and films
Hi, Roger and Chris! I really enjoyed this latest blog entry, and as I read, and saw the photos, I couldn't help but be reminded of a few movies. Since I've never been to England, I guess that is my only point of reference. :) The flower market reminded me of My Fair Lady, where Eliza Doolittle sold flowers to passersby. Seeing the photo of the Bank of England immediately brought to mind a scene from Mary Poppins, when George Banks sang to his children about putting their tuppence in the bank! Looks like a fabulous day of browsing markets and sight-seeing!