East Street Market

"East Street" redirects here. For other uses, see East Street (disambiguation).

East Street market

Market interior

East Street Market also known locally as 'The Lane', or 'East Lane', is a busy street market in Walworth in South London. It is large and vibrant and is good for African and Caribbean fruit and vegetables, material and household goods.

Location

East Street is in the London Borough of Southwark and is between Walworth Road on the western side and the Old Kent Road on the Eastern side. It is located at 51°29′22″N 0°05′20″W.

The market runs down East Street from the junction with Walworth Road to Dawes Street. The main entrance to the market is from Walworth Road. A bus stop on Walworth road serves the market, with a large number of buses arriving from Elephant and Castle or Camberwell Green. These include bus numbers 12, 35, 40, 45, 68, 148, 171, 176 and 468.

History

There has been street trading in the Walworth area since the 16th Century, when farmers rested their livestock on Walworth Common before continuing to the city. During the industrial revolution, stalls lined the whole of the Walworth Road, but the market has only been officially running since 1880.

East Street is also the birthplace of Charlie Chaplin and features in the title sequence to the television programme Only Fools and Horses.

Produce

The market sells clothing, jewellery, cosmetics, household products, confectionary, fruit and vegetables, CDs and DVDs.

Opening times

It is open every day except Monday. Sunday is the busiest day as the market consists of over 250 stalls including the weekly plant market. Depending what type of Wednesday it is e.g Ash Wednesday etc on normal wednesdays they do half days instead.

Politics

East street forms the boundary between two parliamentary constituencies and is therefore in the unusual position of being represented by two members of parliament. The north side of the street is in the North Southwark and Bermondsey parliamentary constituency represented for the past 26 years by Simon Hughes of the Liberal Democrats. The south side of East Street is represented by Harriet Harman, the Member of Parliament for Camberwell and Peckham.

Similarly, East Street forms the boundary line between the wards of East Walworth on the north side and Faraday on the south side, both in the London Borough of Southwark. East street is therefore represented in Southwark Council by six councillors, all Labour. The East Walworth councillors are Cllr. Helen Morrissey, Cllr. Martin Seaton and Cllr. Darren Merrill. Faraday ward is represented by Dan Garfield, Lorraine Lauder and Abdul Mohammed.

East Street is under the jurisdiction of Walworth Community Council.