Hunt for treasures in magical markets
LONDON — It’s getting a lot harder at Portobello Road to find a Spanish guitar, a filigree samovar owned by the Czar, Waterford crystal, or Napoleon’s pistol.
But just poking through shops and stalls on a Saturday is rewarding enough for the London visitor, especially those brought up on tales and songs about the city’s colourful, bustling markets.
Portobello, the place where the riches of ages are stowed, has had to swing with London’s changing times. Queen Victoria’s corsets will likely be appraised on Antiques Road Show before ending up here.
Yet we were just as happy to stroll in from the Notting Hill Gate Underground, where the road eventually becomes a multinational pedestrian thoroughfare on Saturday (fashion day) and Sunday (second-hand goods) to some 1,000 dealers.
Our first stop in a Portobello arcade, a small booth run by a chap named Erskine, showed that some treasures remain to be discovered here.
“We’re still a unique market,” he said. “We don’t have much furniture anymore, but it could be porcelain, jewelry, scientific instruments (Erskine’s specialty) ... all the smaller items, the weird and wonderful, strange and unusual, from all over the world.”
A few 19th-century brass naval telescopes fixed to his wall had caught my eye, as did detailed Second World War tank models and glass-encased clocks. I asked about the item he’d been fidgeting with, which resembled a small pepper mill.
It was the Curta pocket calculator, one of the 20th century’s first such inventions, by Curt Herzstark, an Austrian Jew imprisoned at Buchenwald. Herzstark’s prototype, which had been shelved while he was inside the barbed wire, impressed the camp commander, who spared his life to continue his research. Postwar, the government of Liechtenstein built him a factory and the device became popular in Europe until the computer age.
Silverware gleamed in the sun at Antique Arcade, while at Alice’s, everything from miniature paintings to pub signs costs five pounds.
U.K. souvenirs are in abundance, from The Beatles (you’re not far from Abbey Road) to beer mats, and the selection is preferable to London tourist trap shops.
From the top of the market at the tube station, sip a pint at The Sun In Splendour, in the shadow of author George Orwell’s residence (No. 22) amid pastel row houses.
If famished at the end of Portobello bargain hunting, recharge at the Earl of Lonsdale’s garden pub, or continue on the avenue for street food and to check out other market stalls towards the Westway.
COLUMBIA ROAD
You need not purchase five pounds worth of peonies at the Columbia Road flower market, though a delightful chorus of local cadence makes it hard to resist.
“Succulents a fiver — ’ave a look, mate.”
“Roses, cheapest in the market — ’ow about four for 10?”
“Gazania, calathea, three pounds, m’love.”
The heart of this Sunday morning East End tradition, which had its beginnings in 1869, isn’t for the claustrophobic. Visitors compete with London green thumbs taking their time at each barrow to back up traffic as vendors try out-shouting each other. Only the tallest sunflowers and jasmine trees on their way home can be distinguished above a sea of heads.
It’s open from 8 a.m. until early afternoon, rain or shine. Behind the Sunday carts and stalls are resident shops for books, stationary, antiques and snack food.
We arrived from Bethnal Green tube on the Central Line, but there are closer stations to the market at Hoxton and Shoreditch.
OTHER MARKETS
Borough Market: Food has been the focus for 1,000 years on the south bank of the Thames, with its proximity to London Bridge across to the city. Britain’s push toward more artisan foods in the late 1990s resurrected Borough Market, now joined Wednesday to Saturday by other retailers. At night, the pubs and shops in the surrounding waterside give it a Dickensian feel.
Carnaby Street: From being the most chic shopping area in the 1960s, it’s now in competition with the giant stores on Regent Street and Oxford Street. Its advantage is no cars and still some surprises.
Greenwich Market:
Houses a bit of all the above, but open seven days a week and handy to the National Maritime Museum, the Royal Observatory and Naval College. Scenic approach by land or water.