I recently took a trip to London Baby. This is the official and complete term for our nation’s capital, by the way. The premise was to partake of a 2 day international medical conference, but this was merely a ruse. The real reason was of course to check out some local ‘vintiquing’ hotspots, and do some DGAF shopping. (For the un-initiated, this is a well rehearsed salvage sister survival acronym, sadly unpublishable in this context.) During the first morning of the conference, I managed to recruit some fellow miscreants to come along with me during lunch to the Old Spitalfield Thursday Flea Market. Just a few stops on the underground, and a frenzied walk from Liverpool Street got us there in reasonable time for a dig around. In any case, who actually benefits these professional ‘networking’ lunches anyway?! Much better to scoff your salmon, move directly past the free pen table and escape for an hour of leisurely market browsing.
The market had a decent number of good stalls, with some more specialist sellers eg antique giant maps, cornish crockery, silverware. Being in central London though, the prices rose accordingly and i couldn’t quite bring hand to pocket in order to make any purchases. The value of going to these high quality markets for me is to gather ideas, find out what is popular, and brush up on items to watch out for elsewhere at half the price.
Malkie and I have been in London every year for the past 6 odd, and almost always take a trip to Leon. The Spitalfield branch is the best, and was the first one i went to, having cooked my way through the first book shortly after it was published around 2008. It was a surprise to discover Leon is essentially a fast food chain, but that doesn’t diminish its appeal. Here we have moroccan chicken, cool ‘slaw’ sides and traditional lemonade – shlurp! Plus a free orange brownie thrown in for good measure.
Friday morning and my enthusiasm was undiminished, so like a woman possessed I arose early and headed south. I read somewhere recently that Bermondsey Market was a must-see. In operation since 1950, this is local trade at its finest. Though it was a lot further than I had anticipated, the walk was worth it to see this wonderfully named shop en route.
The market itself was pretty quaint, with about 20 stalls of mainly antique dealers with some interesting wares. After chatting to a guy about the demise of the market in recent years, I bargained him down to £10 for these original copper letters spelling a word close to my heart.
My other purchase was this large Beryl Woods Ware 1940s teapot for £8. The elderly seller and I got chatting about the pot, which was part of her original wedding gift list together with the tea set. She seemed quite delighted to hear I had many of the original cups and saucers, as well as some from the yellow Jasmine range, so she was eager to strike a deal. In a tenuous but nonetheless relevant link to my husband, this exact tea set is often used on the set of Endeavour, the prequel to Morse. As a former non-Calvert i did not understand the appeal of the murder mystery programme, but now that I am a complete convert I thought a reference to the TV series might soften the blow for Malkie, who inevitably ended up lumbered with this ruddy teapot for the rest of our travels around London.
Wood’s Ware probably isn’t high tariff crockery as yet, but I reckon it will be a rising star for vintage aficionados in the next decade. So I’m starting my collection early folks.