Borough Market

Borough Market claims a food-trading lineage running back about a thousand years - records place a Southwark market by 1014, catching travellers at the southern foot of London Bridge - and it has occupied its current triangle of land since 1756, when locals raised the money to buy the site and vest it in the charitable trust that still runs it. The setting is pure atmospheric London: green-painted Victorian ironwork and market halls wedged beneath the brick viaducts of London Bridge station, trains rumbling overhead, Southwark Cathedral's tower rising alongside. The trading splits between serious produce - rare-breed meat, day-boat fish, artisan cheeses and bread, mushroom stalls of forager's-fantasy variety - and one of the city's best street-food circuits, from raclette to curry to the pastry counters that generate the longest queues. Chefs shop here in the mornings; the rest of London arrives for lunch.

What you actually see

• The produce halls - cheeses, day-boat fish and rare-breed butchery under green ironwork.
• The street-food circuit - lunch from raclette to pastry queues.
• The railway arches - Victorian market life beneath rumbling viaducts.
• Southwark Cathedral - the quiet Gothic neighbour a step from the stalls.

When to go

The full market runs from midweek through Saturday - Saturday is the spectacle and the crush, weekday mornings the connoisseur's window. Check current opening days before planning a Sunday or Monday visit.

Honest expectations

Prices are artisan London, not bargain-market - budget accordingly and treat samples as invitations, not lunch. Saturday lunchtime is a slow-shuffling scrum where prams and photography compete. Eating space is scarce; most lunches happen standing or on the cathedral's steps.

Nearby

Southwark Cathedral, the Thames path past the Golden Hinde and Tate Modern along Bankside.