Leadenhall Market is a covered Victorian arcade in the middle of the City of London, painted maroon, cream and green under a glass roof. The public passageways are never locked, so you can walk through at any hour, but the shops, bars and restaurants inside keep their own hours and most of them exist to feed office workers.
That is the gap between expectation and reality here. People arrive expecting a market with stalls, because of the name, and find an arcade of permanent shopfronts. Others arrive on a Sunday morning expecting it to be busy, and find a beautiful empty corridor with the shutters down. Both are worth knowing before you plan a detour.
Film crews are responsible for much of the traffic. The market says scenes for the first film in the Harry Potter series were shot in its passageways in 2000 and 2001: it stood in for the streets leading to the Leaky Cauldron, and inspired Diagon Alley. Our guide to Harry Potter filming locations in London covers the rest of the trail; for genuine market shopping, see London's food markets instead.
Leadenhall Market in brief
- Address
- Gracechurch Street, London EC3V 1LT
- Public areas
- Open 24 hours a day; there is no gate and no admission charge
- Shops and restaurants
- Individual hours; the market asks you to check with each retailer
- Nearest Tube
- Monument 4 minutes, Bank 6 minutes, Aldgate 8 minutes
- Nearest rail
- Fenchurch Street and Cannon Street 8 minutes, Liverpool Street 13 minutes
- Dogs
- Welcome in the public areas on a lead; individual shops set their own rules
- Smoking
- Not permitted anywhere in the market
- Current works
- Scaffolding is up for maintenance; the market remains fully open
What is actually open, and when
The market's public areas stay open around the clock. You can walk through at midnight and photograph the arcade empty, which is what serious photographers do. What you cannot rely on is anything being open.
The market's own advice is to check with individual retailers before visiting, and that is not a formality: the trading hours here follow the City's working week, not a tourist timetable. Two things we can tell you from the businesses' own pages, checked in September 2026:
- The Lamb Tavern, the pub that has traded in the market since the buildings were completed in the 1880s, opens Monday to Saturday from 11am to 11pm and Sunday from 11am to 7pm. Its kitchen closes at 9pm on weekdays and 6pm on Sunday.
- Old Tom's Bar keeps the same pattern: 11am to 11pm Monday to Saturday, 11am to 7pm on Sunday, with the kitchen closing earlier.
So a Sunday visit is not wasted if what you want is a roast and an empty arcade to photograph. If you want the market working, with people spilling out of the doorways and queues at the food counters, come on a weekday between about midday and 2pm, or after work on a Thursday or Friday.
Do not come on a weekday at 9am expecting breakfast and a photograph. The City is in motion at that hour and the arcade is a thoroughfare, not a destination: thousands of people walk through it on their way to desks in the surrounding towers. Either arrive before 8am for the pictures, or after 11am for the atmosphere.
Photo: LFreebury · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons · resized
The shops and the food, named
The mix leans heavily towards eating and drinking. Places to eat include Luc's Brasserie, Osteria del Mercato, Giorgio, Sfrigola, Baba Ganoush, Bibimbap ToGo, Chango Empanadas, Boom Bap Burger, Tortilla, Buns from Home, Aux Merveilleux de Fred, Rosslyn and a Pizza Express, alongside The Lamb Tavern, Old Tom's Bar, The Golden Goose and Bedales for wine.
The shops are fewer: Waterstones, Barbour, Hobbs, Reiss, Amathus for drinks, the SoLo Craft Fair Shop, House of Wonders, Kandies, a Timpson and the London City Shoe Shine Company. This is not a shopping destination in the way Old Spitalfields is; it is a handsome lunch stop with a few good shops attached.
If the food is the point of your visit, you will do better ten minutes south at Borough Market. What Leadenhall has that Borough does not is the building.
The building, and the man who designed it
The present structure went up in 1881 to a design by Sir Horace Jones, the City Architect, who also designed Smithfield, Billingsgate and Tower Bridge. He replaced a stone market with wrought iron and glass, and took his cue from Mengoni's Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in Milan.
It cost £99,000 to build, with another £148,000 spent on the approaches. The crooked ground plan is not a design choice but a constraint: Jones had to work within medieval rights of way, which is why the arcade bends. At the centre, an octagonal crossing rises to a dome and lantern on giant Ionic cast-iron columns carrying City dragons. It was listed Grade II in 1972.
Two details reward a slow walk. The stone pediments over the entrances are sized according to the importance of each way in, the larger ones carrying the market's name and date. And several shopfronts still have the spiked racks that game birds were once hung from.
Roman London is directly underneath
The market sits on top of the forum and basilica of Roman Londinium, the administrative and commercial centre of the Roman city. The first forum here dates from about AD 70 and was rebuilt around AD 100 into the largest basilica-forum north of the Alps, covering more ground than Trafalgar Square.
The basilica's east-west axis runs across the north side of the present market building, and the remains of a pier from its south arcade survive as an ancient monument in the basement of 90 Gracechurch Street, uncovered when the Victorian market was built between 1880 and 1882. In 1803 a Roman mosaic of Bacchus riding a tiger was found nearby, nine and a half feet below the street; what survives of it is in the British Museum.
For Roman remains you can actually walk into, the free Roman amphitheatre beneath Guildhall is a ten-minute walk north.
Old Tom, and a Christmas turkey
Leadenhall was a poultry and game market for centuries, and its most celebrated resident was a goose. Old Tom, a gander from Ostend, arrived by accident with a flock bound for slaughter and survived; the market records 34,000 geese killed over two days while Old Tom escaped. He became a favourite, was fed at the local inns, and when he died in 1835 at the age of 38 he lay in state and was buried on site.
The other story the market claims is Dickens. Leadenhall was London's place to buy fowl, so the prize turkey Scrooge sends to the Cratchits in A Christmas Carol would very likely have come from here.
The market publishes three free self-guided walks you can download. The shortest covers Leadenhall itself, including the Roman remains, Old Tom's burial spot and the pub used as the Leaky Cauldron. A circular City route of about 4 km takes roughly 45 minutes, and a riverside route of 5.4 km takes about an hour. They are on the market's own website, with routes on a map.
Filming: what was shot here besides Harry Potter
The market's list of productions filmed in the arcade includes Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Hereafter and Love Aaj Kal, as well as Erasure's video for Love to Hate You in 1991.
If the Harry Potter connection is the reason you are coming, be realistic about what is here: a handsome Victorian arcade that appears on screen for a matter of seconds, with no set dressing and nothing themed. The Warner Bros. Studio Tour is where the actual Diagon Alley set stands, and it must be booked in advance.
Getting there, and the scaffolding
Monument, on the District and Circle lines, is four minutes away and is the easiest approach; Bank, with the Central, Northern and Waterloo & City lines and the DLR, is six. Aldgate is eight minutes and Moorgate thirteen. Fenchurch Street and Cannon Street are eight minutes on foot and Liverpool Street thirteen, which our guide to London's main railway stations puts in context.
Scaffolding is currently up for essential maintenance works. The market states that it remains fully open and accessible, but if the photograph is the entire reason for your journey, check the market's website first to see whether the scaffolding has come down. A stores map and a disability access map can both be downloaded from the market’s visitor page.
Half an hour, and what to attach it to
Leadenhall Market needs twenty minutes unless you are eating. Build it into a City walk: the Monument is four minutes south, Sky Garden is a short walk west and free with a booked ticket, and the towers covered in our guide to the Gherkin and the City's skyscrapers are immediately around it, including the Lloyd's building, whose external pipework and lifts rise immediately beside the market.
For a Sunday, when the City is at its quietest, the combination of an empty arcade and a Sunday roast in a pub that has been trading on the spot since the 1880s is a better plan than it sounds. Our guides to the City of London and historic pubs fill in the rest of the walk, and there is no admission charge for any of it; see free things to do in London.
Frequently asked questions
Is Leadenhall Market open on Sundays?
The market's public areas are open 24 hours a day, every day, so you can always walk through and photograph it. Individual shops and restaurants set their own hours. The Lamb Tavern and Old Tom's Bar both open on Sundays from 11am to 7pm, but many other units follow the City's weekday trading pattern.
Is Leadenhall Market free to visit?
Yes. There is no admission charge and no ticket. It is a public thoroughfare owned and managed by the City of London Corporation, and you can walk through at any time of day or night.
Was Leadenhall Market used in Harry Potter?
Yes. Filming for the first film in the series took place in the arcade in 2000 and 2001. According to the market, it represented the area leading to the Leaky Cauldron, inspired Diagon Alley, and appears in the scene where Hagrid escorts Harry through the streets.
What is the best time to visit Leadenhall Market?
For atmosphere, a weekday between midday and 2pm, or early evening on a Thursday or Friday, when the food counters and bars are busy. For photographs without crowds, early on a Sunday morning. Avoid weekday mornings, when the arcade is a commuter route.
Which Tube station is closest to Leadenhall Market?
Monument, on the District and Circle lines, about four minutes' walk. Bank is six minutes, Aldgate eight and Moorgate thirteen. Fenchurch Street and Cannon Street are each about eight minutes away on foot.
Sources
- Leadenhall Market - Visit (checked September 2026)
- Leadenhall Market - The history of Leadenhall Market (checked September 2026)
- Leadenhall Market - Eat and drink (checked September 2026)
- Leadenhall Market - Shop (checked September 2026)
- Leadenhall Market - Self-guided walks (checked September 2026)
- The Lamb Tavern - Opening times (checked September 2026)