Tooting

Published 21 September 2026 · By the Guide to London editorial team · Editor: Terje Moy

Tooting is a long, busy high street in south-west London, twenty minutes from the centre on the Northern line, with two covered markets facing each other across the road and the largest freshwater outdoor swimming pool in Britain ten minutes' walk away. It is a place people live in rather than visit, and the food is the reason to make the journey.

The shape of it is simple. One road runs south from Tooting Bec station through Tooting Broadway and on towards Colliers Wood, changing its name from Upper Tooting Road to Tooting High Street as it goes. Almost everything a visitor wants is on that road or a minute off it.

Our guide to Indian food in London already explains what to order here, and does it properly. This page is about the place itself: which station to use, what the two markets actually are, how the lido works, and whether the journey is worth making at all.

Which station, and why it matters more than usual

Tooting has three stations with confusingly similar names, and getting off at the wrong one adds twenty minutes of walking to a hot day.

• Tooting Broadway (Northern line, Morden branch) is the one you want for the markets, the restaurants and the main crossroads. Come up the steps and you are in the middle of everything.
• Tooting Bec (Northern line, one stop north) is the one for the lido and the common, and the start of the walk south down Upper Tooting Road if you want to see the whole street.
• Tooting (National Rail, Thameslink, on the Wimbledon loop) is a different station altogether, about fifteen minutes' walk east of the Broadway. It is useful only if you are coming from London Bridge, Blackfriars or St Pancras rather than the West End.

All three are in Zone 3, and contactless and Oyster work on all of them. A single Tube fare from Zone 1 varies by journey, so check your specific trip on TfL's Single Fare Finder rather than assuming a flat price; our explainer on how London's travel zones work covers the caps. The Northern line here is the Morden branch, which is one of the simpler bits of a complicated line, and our Underground guide explains the branch system if you are new to it.

Two covered markets, and the difference between them

The two markets are the oddest thing about Tooting, and the explanation is competitive. Tooting Market opened on the High Street in 1930, in a purpose-built covered hall with the founding date carved over the entrance. Six years later, in March 1936, Broadway Market opened a few yards away, closer to the Tube station, with its own entrances onto the same street. They have been next door to each other ever since.

Tooting Market, at 21-23 Tooting High Street, has entrances on the High Street and on Totterdown Street at the back. Inside it is a narrow lane of small units: barbers, nail bars, a fishmonger, a record shop, and a cluster of small kitchens and bars at one end. It keeps long hours, from early morning until late in the evening, and later still on Friday and Saturday nights, which makes it one of the few covered markets in London that is genuinely open after dark.

Broadway Market, the newer one, is plainer and more of a working market: fabric, haberdashery, household goods, a butcher, a grocer, and several food counters. It is quieter in the evening. This is not the Broadway Market in Hackney, which is a Saturday street market on the other side of the river and a completely different thing.

Go into both. They take about twenty minutes together, they cost nothing, and they are the clearest picture you will get of what Tooting is.

Tooting Bec Lido: 91 metres of cold water

The lido sits on the edge of Tooting Bec Common, a few minutes from Tooting Bec station. At 91 metres it is, by its operator's description, Britain's biggest outdoor freshwater pool. It is not a heated leisure pool. It is a long, cold, open-air rectangle with brightly painted changing cubicles down both sides, and people swim lengths in it in all weathers.

It opens for a spring and summer season only. In 2026 that season began on Friday 1 May, with the pool open from 6am on weekday mornings. Sessions should be booked ahead to guarantee a space, and bookings are not refundable, so check the operator's page for the current season dates and times before you travel. Our guide to swimming ponds and lidos in London compares it with Brockwell, Parliament Hill and the Hampstead Heath ponds, including which ones stay open in January.

The commons, which are bigger than they look

Tooting Bec Common and Tooting Graveney Common together make a large stretch of open grass, woodland and sports pitches between Tooting and Balham, split down the middle by the railway line. There is a lake, a set of tennis courts, an athletics track and a great many dog walkers.

It is not a designed landscape and there is nothing in particular to look at. What it gives you is space and a shortcut: you can walk from Tooting Bec station across the common to Balham in about twenty-five minutes, which is a much better way to move between the two than going back on the Tube.

What is actually on the high street

The stretch from Tooting Bec station south to Tooting Broadway, and on down the High Street, is one of the densest eating streets in London. Sri Lankan Tamil cafés, South Indian vegetarian dining rooms, Pakistani grill houses, halal butchers, Polish delicatessens and a growing number of small bars all sit within a few hundred metres of each other.

Prices are the point. A meal here costs a fraction of the same food in the centre, and portions are generous rather than delicate. If you are eating strictly vegetarian, this is one of the easiest streets in the city: whole menus contain no meat and never did. Our pages on vegetarian and vegan London and halal food in London both point here, and cheap eats in London puts the street against the other budget areas.

Between the restaurants, the high street is ordinary: phone shops, pound shops, pharmacies, a large supermarket, the familiar names our page on London's chain restaurants explains, and a hospital. St George's, one of the biggest hospitals in the country, sits just west of the Broadway and shapes the area more than any single building.

The Broadway itself, and the statue nobody looks at

Tooting Broadway is a five-way junction with a traffic island in the middle of it, and on that island stands a bronze statue of Edward VII, put up after his death in 1910. It is the local meeting point, and it is where the buses stop.

Behind it, on Mitcham Road, is the former Granada cinema, a 1930s picture palace with an extravagant Gothic interior and one of the most lavish surviving cinema buildings in the country. It stopped showing films decades ago and its use has changed more than once since, so do not plan a visit around going inside. Look at the frontage from the pavement, and take whatever access happens to be on offer.

Evenings, and how late things run

Tooting has become a going-out destination for south London rather than for visitors, and the evening centres on the market halls and the pubs and bars along the High Street and Mitcham Road. It is busy on Friday and Saturday and fairly quiet on a Monday.

Because the Northern line runs through the night at weekends, this is one of the few outer areas where a late dinner does not mean a night bus or a taxi. On Sunday to Thursday the last train goes at a normal time, so check before you settle in. At night it behaves like any other busy London high street: well lit, plenty of people about, and no reason for special concern beyond the ordinary habit of keeping a phone out of sight on the pavement.

Who Tooting suits

The honest summary is that Tooting is worth a trip on a second or third visit to London, or on a long one, and not on a first three-day stay. If you have time for one south London food street, it is a fair contest between this and Brixton, which has more to look at. If you want the food and something to see afterwards, pair it with the galleries and park at Herne Hill and Dulwich, or with Wimbledon, which is four stops further out on the same side of the city.

Frequently asked questions

How do you get to Tooting from central London?

Take the Northern line on the Morden branch to Tooting Broadway, which is about 20 minutes from Leicester Square and is in Zone 3. Tooting Bec is one stop earlier and is the station for the lido and the common. There is also a separate Thameslink station called Tooting, on the Wimbledon loop, about 15 minutes' walk from the Broadway.

What is Tooting known for?

Food, mainly: a long high street of South Indian, Sri Lankan and Pakistani restaurants and grocers, at prices far below central London. It also has two covered markets that opened in 1930 and 1936 within a few yards of each other, a very large common, and Tooting Bec Lido, the largest freshwater outdoor pool in Britain.

When is Tooting Bec Lido open?

For a spring and summer season only. The 2026 season opened on Friday 1 May, with early-morning weekday sessions from 6am. The pool is unheated and runs to 91 metres. Book a slot in advance, as bookings are not refundable, and check the operator's page for the current season dates before you travel.

Is Tooting Market the same as Broadway Market?

No. They are two separate covered markets a few yards apart on Tooting High Street. Tooting Market was founded in 1930 and keeps long evening hours; Broadway Market opened in 1936, nearer the Tube station, and is plainer and more of a working market. Neither is Broadway Market in Hackney, which is a Saturday street market in east London.

Is Tooting safe to visit in the evening?

It is a busy, well-lit inner-suburban high street with a lot of people on it, and no official advice suggests avoiding it. Keep a phone out of your hand while walking, use the main roads rather than the residential streets behind them after dark, and check the last train if you are not travelling on a Friday or Saturday night.

Sources

• Places Leisure - Tooting Bec Lido (checked September 2026)
• Tooting Market - About the market (checked September 2026)
• Tooting Market - History of the market, 1916-1930 (checked September 2026)
• Transport for London - Night Tube lines and times (checked September 2026)
• Transport for London - Single Fare Finder (checked September 2026)