Camden Market

Camden Lock Market started in 1974 with sixteen stalls in a disused timber yard beside the Regent's Canal and grew through the 1980s and 1990s into a group of connected markets: the Lock, the Stables in the former horse hospital and railway arches, the Buck Street market and others, together drawing tens of millions of visits a year. The Stables Market keeps the horse tunnels and vaults from when the site served the railway, with bronze horse sculptures at the entrance. Food has become the main draw, with a hundred or more stalls covering most cuisines and sold to eat standing at the canal basin. The shopfronts along Camden High Street carry enormous fibreglass signs, boots, dragons and aeroplanes, a local tradition dating from the 1990s.

What you actually see

• The Stables Market - horse tunnels and railway vaults converted to stalls.
• The canal basin - the lock at the centre with people eating along the water.
• The food stalls - a hundred or more cuisines sold to eat standing.
• The high street signs - oversized fibreglass shopfront sculptures.

When to go

April to October for the canal side at its best; weekends are extremely busy and Saturday afternoon is the peak. Weekday mornings are the calmest and many stalls open late.

Honest expectations

Crowds at weekends are severe and moving through the narrow sections is slow. Much of the clothing and souvenir stock is mass-produced and repeated stall to stall. A serious fire in 2008 and another in 2017 destroyed parts that were rebuilt.

Nearby

Regent's Canal runs to Little Venice; Primrose Hill and Regent's Park lie west.