Old Spitalfields Market: Not so old!

Entrance from Commercial Street

The Original Entrance to the Market from the Victorian times.

One hot and lazy Sunday afternoon, my husband and I were just lounging around our home in London. We kept asking each other what do you want to do today. Finally it popped in my head that I wanted to explore street markets of London. Old Spitalfields Market was on my list of markets to visit. It is little far from home but now with purpose to conquer that part of London we stepped out under the hot sun to catch the tube.

We came out of the artificially lit underground world into the bright and sunny East London’s Liverpool Street. We depend a lot on the Citymapper App to find our way around London. The app pointed us to the Old Spitalfields Market. We approached the market from Bishop Square. The first thing we encountered was this sculpture of a goat atop stacks of crates. It is a sculpture I Goat by sculptor Kenny Hunter. It is supposed to represent the immigrant community of East London.

I Goat

I Goat with the Christ Church in the distance.

We made our way to the market - though we did get distracted by the sales at the stores surrounding the market. There are some famous brand names stores here. Finally we made our way inside. Today’s market is in the place of Old Spitalfields Market where fruits and vegetables were traded in the Victorian era.That market moved to a new location in 1991. In that place today’s Spitalfields Market was established. It is a vibrant place for food, one of a kind handmade craft pieces, jewelry and such. Lot of the shops sell similar kind of clothes made from linen or such organic materials. It is a covered market so even on a rainy day you can easily spend few hours.

Unfortunately we had gone after lunch. So we had to bypass the mouth watering food that time. But we had to try Taiwanese dumpling-like pancakes. We spent so much time watching this guy making them that there was no choice but to satisfy our salivating mouths. We tried the vanilla and chocolate filled pancakes. They were yummy. It was great to see him branding the little dumpling with a searing rod.

Making Taiwanese Pancakes 

Branding the Taiwanese Pancakes

We had to rush back home that time. But the food that we did not indulge in stayed on our minds. We promised ourselves that we will be back again just to sample the food.

We visited for a second time last weekend. We could not wait too long to try out such a variety of food. I'm still working on that part of the blog. Keep watching this space for the next one!