Broadway Market, Hackney

Published 28 September 2026 · By the Guide to London editorial team · Editor: Terje Moy

Broadway Market is a Saturday market. It opens at 09:00 on a short street in Hackney, it is at its best in the two hours before noon, and by two in the afternoon you are queueing rather than shopping. There is a smaller Sunday market, and the shops on the street trade all week.

The street itself is about 350 metres long. It runs from the southern edge of London Fields down to a bridge over the Regent's Canal, and on Saturdays roughly a hundred stalls fill the middle of it while the permanent shops keep their doors open on both sides. Entry is free and you pay stall by stall.

Almost everything sold here is food you eat on the spot or food you carry home. That is the single most useful thing to know before you come: this is not a market for souvenirs, clothes or antiques, and a visitor who arrives expecting Camden or Portobello will be disappointed within ten minutes. Our comparison of London's food markets sets it against Borough and the rest, and our guide to Hackney and London Fields covers the park, the lido and the wider area.

The Sunday closing time nobody agrees on

Two official sources give two different answers, and we are not going to pick one silently. Hackney Council, which licenses the market, publishes Saturday 09:00 to 17:00 and Sunday 10:00 to 17:00. The Broadway Market Traders and Residents Association, which runs the street day to day, publishes Saturday 09:00 to 17:00 and Sunday 10:00 to 16:00.

For Saturday it makes no difference. For Sunday it matters, because the Sunday market is small and the traders who are there begin packing when the crowd thins. Treat 16:00 as the last useful hour on a Sunday, and treat the extra hour as a possibility rather than a plan.

Why the hour before noon is the whole point

Between 09:00 and about 10:30 you can walk the length of the street in five minutes, see every stall, and buy from the ones you want. From about 11:30 the street becomes a single slow file of people, the queues at the better-known hot food stalls run to a quarter of an hour, and the produce traders start to sell out of the things they brought least of.

There is a second, quieter window from about 15:30, when the crowd drains away towards the canal and the pubs. You will find fewer stalls and less choice, but you can talk to the people behind them. The worst hour to arrive is 13:00 on a warm Saturday.

This pattern is not unique to Hackney, but it is sharper here than at bigger markets because the street is narrow and there is no second aisle to escape into. If avoiding crowds is a priority for your whole trip, our page on how to avoid the crowds in London applies the same logic to the major sights.

What is actually on the stalls

Hackney Council's own description of the commodities is fresh produce, street food, locally designed clothing, arts and crafts, and that order reflects the proportions. On a normal Saturday you can expect bread, pastries, cheese, oysters, cured meat, coffee, fruit and vegetables, flowers, and fifteen to twenty hot food traders cooking to order. The clothing and craft element is real but small: a handful of stalls, usually towards the London Fields end.

Hot food is where most visitors spend. Expect roughly £9 to £14 for a plate in September 2026, which is our own estimate from the market rather than a published price list, and about the same as the street-food end of Borough. Bring a card. Almost every trader takes contactless and several take nothing else; our page on money in London covers cards and fees for visitors.

Two practical points about eating here. There is very little seating, so people sit on the kerb, on the canal bridge or on the grass in London Fields. And on a wet Saturday perhaps a third of the hot food traders simply do not come, because the street has no cover of any kind.

The shops, which are open when the market is not

The traders' association counts more than 60 shops on the street, and says the street operates 365 days a year even though the market runs only at weekends. That is what makes a weekday visit worthwhile at all. The shops are the reason Broadway Market is not empty on a Tuesday.

Several have been here long enough to be fixtures. The fishmonger at number 71, the delicatessen and cafe at 35 to 37, and the bakery at number 18 all hold the top food hygiene rating from inspections in 2026 or late 2025. The pub at 24 to 28, at the London Fields end, also holds five and serves food. The coffee roaster at number 67 and the cafe at number 2 were rated four at their most recent inspections. We checked every one of these on the Food Standards Agency register before naming it, and we have left out two long-standing names on the street whose last recorded inspection is more than five years old.

There is an independent bookshop near the northern end of the street, and it is genuinely good, but we could not read its opening hours from any source that answers our requests, so check on the day rather than travelling for it. For bookshops you can plan around, our guide to the best bookshops in London deals with the ones that keep reliable hours.

Netil Market and the yard behind the street

A short walk east, off Westgate Street, is Netil Market, a small yard of food counters, studios and a rooftop bar. It is a separate operation with separate hours, and we were unable to read them: the site did not respond to us in September 2026. Assume it follows the weekend rhythm of the main street and check before making a special trip.

The useful thing about the yard is that it is under cover in places and much less crowded than the street at lunchtime. If the market is impassable at one o'clock, walk five minutes and try there.

The canal, the park, and how to make a half-day of it

Broadway Market is short. Seeing it properly takes forty minutes, an hour if you eat. The reason people spend a morning here is what sits at each end.

North is London Fields, a flat green rectangle with a heated 50-metre outdoor pool along its western edge, open every day of the year. South, across the bridge at the bottom of the street, is the Regent's Canal towpath. Turn east on the towpath and you reach Victoria Park in about fifteen minutes, where a separate food market runs on Sunday mornings inside the gates. Turn west and the towpath runs towards Islington and Camden; our guide to the Regent's Canal covers that half.

The obvious Saturday plan is the market at 09:30, the towpath at 11:30 and the park after that. The obvious Sunday plan is different: Broadway Market's Sunday session is thin, so pair it with Columbia Road Flower Market, which is Sunday-only and about twenty-five minutes away on foot or ten by bus.

Getting here, and the station that catches people out

There is no Underground station. London Fields, on the Overground's Weaver line from Liverpool Street, is the closest at about four minutes' walk from the top of the street, and trains take about nine minutes. Cambridge Heath, one stop further, is about seven minutes from the canal end. Bethnal Green, on the Central line, is roughly twenty minutes away on foot.

The catch is that the Overground line names changed and journey planners sometimes offer Hackney Central, which is on a different line and a fifteen-minute walk away. Our explainer on the Overground's six line names untangles which is which. Buses are often more pleasant than the train for short hops across east London, and one bus fare lets you change buses within the hour.

Hackney says there is some free parking in zone J on market days, but the street is closed to traffic while the market runs and the surrounding roads are residents' bays. Do not drive here.

Who should skip it

If the answer is "skip it", the honest alternatives are a covered market or an all-week one. Borough Market trades six days a week under a roof, and Greenwich Market is covered and open daily. Our table of London markets by day of the week is the fastest way to find one that matches the day you actually have free.

Frequently asked questions

What day is Broadway Market open?

Saturday is the main day, from 09:00, with a smaller Sunday market from 10:00. There is no weekday market, and Hackney closes its street markets on public holidays apart from Good Friday. The permanent shops along the street trade through the week.

What time does Broadway Market finish?

Saturday trading ends at 17:00. For Sunday, Hackney Council publishes 17:00 and the traders' association publishes 16:00, so plan to be there before 16:00. In practice traders on both days start packing up once the crowd thins, which on a wet afternoon can be early.

Is Broadway Market worth visiting compared with Borough Market?

For a first visit to London, no: Borough is bigger, covered, open six days a week and easier to reach. Broadway Market is worth the journey on a second trip, or if you are already in east London, because it is a working neighbourhood street rather than a destination built for visitors.

How do I get to Broadway Market by public transport?

Take the Overground's Weaver line from Liverpool Street to London Fields, which takes about nine minutes, then walk four minutes south. Cambridge Heath is an alternative for the canal end. Buses 26, 48, 55, 106, 236, 254, 388 and 394 all serve the area.

Can I bring children to Broadway Market?

Yes, though the street is tightly packed at lunchtime and a pushchair is hard work after about 11:30. Go early, and use London Fields at the top of the street for space, a playground and the outdoor pool. Our family guide to London covers what children pay on transport.

Sources

• Hackney Council - Broadway Market: location, opening times and products (checked September 2026)
• Hackney Council - Ridley Road Market, including bank holiday opening (checked September 2026)
• Hackney Council - Markets and street trading (checked September 2026)
• Food Standards Agency - food hygiene ratings, Broadway Market E8 (checked September 2026)
• Transport for London - London Overground (checked September 2026)