Queen's Market
Shop · Upton Park, England
Queen's Market is a publicly owned covered market on Green Street, Upton Park, E13 9JJ, beside Upton Park station, specialising in South Asian and African food and textiles. Newham Council runs it. Friends of Queen's Market, a campaign group rather than the operator, publishes market days as Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday 9am to 6pm and Sunday 12 noon to 6pm, adding that "some market shops are open on the other days"; there is no Wednesday market day.
History
The market grew up in the late Victorian period as East Ham developed, worked first by English Cockney, Gypsy and Jewish traders from Whitechapel and the East End; in 1904 the traders were moved into Queen's Road to stop them blocking the main road and the trams. From the late 1960s and 1970s South Asian and African traders established themselves. Friends of Queen's Market calls it "our much loved 112-year-old Queen's Market" and says of itself that it "has been in existence for 21 years"; the market is an Asset of Community Value. Newham Council proposed a supermarket and luxury housing above a smaller covered market in November 2006, and in May 2009 the then Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, directed the council to refuse planning permission. It was here that Muhammad Shahid Nazir, the "One Pound Fish Man", filmed the trader's song that led to a record deal in 2012.
Visit
Queen's Market, Green Street, Upton Park, London E13 9JJ