Come On Down To Columbia Road Flower Market

Columbia Road Flower Market feels like the whole world and his friend is out for flowers, yet it remains one of the nicest ways to spend a London Sunday.

The Background to the Blooms

You wouldn’t guess it from the brightly-coloured brilliance of today, but Columbia Road’s beginnings are a lot less rosy. Back in 1830, when it was known as Nova Scotia Gardens, No. 3 was rented by John Bishop and Thomas Williams. Together with two other men, they formed a gang of resurrection men. If you’re luckily unfamiliar with the practice, let us ruin that blissful ignorance.

Resurrection men stole corpses from newly buried graves and sold them to medical schools and anatomists. Foul work and foul play often went hand in hand: suspiciously fresh corpses started turning up. When our Columbia Road gang brought the body of a 14-year-old boy to King’s College, the police smelled something much worse than a rat. Searching their home, they found evidence of multiple murders.

The macabre doesn’t stop there however. The police, inexplicably, opened up the crime scene to the public, charging five shillings for a view. While the tenants were hung for murder, the public dismantled the cottage, taking bits home for souvenirs. Novelty seaside mugs don’t look so bad now.

So how did Columbia get from that to the famous flower sellers? A remarkable philanthropist, Angela Burdett-Coutts, bought the slums and founded a market – not for flowers, but food. She saw the difficulties East Enders had in getting fresh produce and decided a new market would produce jobs too. However, Billingsgate Fish Market took was tough competition and failed plans for a nearby railway line meant custom dried up and the market closed down.

The Market Today

Clearly Columbia had made enough of an impression. Sellers from Covent Garden and Spitalfields started using Columbia Road as a place to clear their leftovers. Since then, the market has had its ups and downs but now appears to be at its strongest. Nestled away behind Brick Lane, you’d never know it was there. It’s only when you trace the buyers cradling brown-paper bouquets that you find an explosion of market cries, crowds and colour.

It’s a playground for London’s alternative elite and a whole host of tourists. You’re as likely to see Keira Knightley buying blooms as you are to be elbowed in the gut by a camera-wielding sightseer. It’s worth following the slow, stumbling snake of people down the centre of this tiny road, if only to spot what wares you want and listen to the hilarious market sellers calling in customers. Take a look on the market’s website to learn a little about the lives of some of these delightful plant peddlers.

If you’re looking to buy, try coming from the makeshift alleys behind the stalls. We also recommend coming nearer the end of the market, where prices go down fast. Columbia road is hands-down the cheapest place to buy stunning, long-lasting flowers in London when two o’clock comes round. Bring cash as ATMs are scarce, and don’t bypass the chic boutiques behind the stacked-high stalls.

With live music, piled-in pubs, coffee, cake and of course, flowers as far as the eye can see, Columbia Road Flower Market’s resurrection is complete – and it’s here to stay.

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