MARKET

Bermondsey Antiques Market or to give it it’s proper title New Caledonian Market is world famous - a 60-year old ‘Brigadoon’: occurring only once a week on Friday mornings in Bermondsey Square South London, between the hours of 4 am and 2 pm, appearing out of the darkness, bustling into life with dozens of stalls, selling anything from precious silver and antique jewellery, rare books and prints, collections of comics and spy-glasses,  to football programmes and antique dolls And then.. it’s gone, the only mark it ever existed the torn paper and rubbish strewn on the ground, as the stalls are stored away again.

Every Friday at 3am, John Sowle and his team haul out the old wooden barrow stalls (above) with their monogrammed wooden wheels just as his father did before him when the market first opened in 1950.

Once the stalls are in place, the traders arrive (some having camped out the night before), and soon after, in the darkness, armed with small torches, the dealers arrive, peering into the gloom of the square, much as they have done for the past 50 years or so. But all this is changing.

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