The food market that was established on Columbia Road in 1869 is now solely devoted to plants and flowers. Every Sunday the street is heavy with people coming early to avoid the crowds and get the best deals, people turning up later on for a casual and fashionable meander through exotic flowers sold in a very traditionally English way, and people arriving as it is ending – knowing that the traders often give out the last of their stock for free before packing up their lorries.

It is so popular that the shops on Columbia Road do enough trade on Sunday – market day – to enable most of them to shut for the rest of the week.

Although going to the market has become a very fashionable thing do to (a lot of people seem to split their Sunday between here and Brick Lane) and shops selling oysters, fairy cakes and home ware reflect this, the fact is that it is still the best place to get plants and flowers for miles around.