Almost every guide sends you to Columbia Road from Old Street or Liverpool Street, which is a twenty minute walk. The market’s own directions name Hoxton on the Overground as the nearest station, about seven minutes away. That is thirteen minutes of your Sunday, carrying plants, for the sake of a station nobody mentions.
The second thing to know is the hours, because they are shorter than people assume. The market and the shops run on Sundays from 8am until three, or as the market itself puts it, three-ish. It is one day a week and it is over by mid afternoon.
When to go, and what that decides
Eight in the morning and two in the afternoon are two different markets.
Arrive at eight and you get the pick of the stock, room to walk, and the shops opening around you. Arrive at two and you get the end of the day, when traders would rather sell a tray than carry it home. Neither is wrong, but they are not the same trip.
The middle of the day, roughly eleven to one, is when the street is at its most crowded and least pleasant to move through with anything in your hands.
What is actually on the stalls
Cut flowers, dried flowers, succulents, cacti, house plants and herbs, at prices the market describes as affordable, which in practice means considerably less than a florist.
The stock turns with the season, and two months stand out. December brings an abundance of Christmas trees, and the herb season starts in spring.
Many of the traders have worked the market their whole lives, in families: grandfathers, fathers and sons, grandmothers, mothers and daughters. It is not a pop up.
The shops, which are the reason to stay
Columbia Road is one of the few streets in the country made up entirely of independent businesses, around sixty of them. Small art galleries, cake shops, vintage clothes, English and Italian delis, gardening and gift shops, antiques, pubs, cafes and restaurants.
Worth knowing for a non Sunday: some of the shops open during the week, even though the market does not. If you want the street without the crush, that is how.
Getting there, and getting things home
Hoxton on the Overground is about seven minutes’ walk. Liverpool Street, Old Street, Shoreditch High Street and Bethnal Green are each about twenty minutes, through streets worth seeing if you have the time and empty hands if you do not.
Buses are the 26, the 55 and the 8. A walk along Regent’s Canal is the market’s own favourite approach.
Parking is at Mulberry School, Gosset Street, E2 6NW, reached from Warner Place or Turin Street. The market’s own warning is blunt: the area is rich picking for traffic wardens, so read the kerbside notices.
If you buy more than you can carry, Pedal Me runs a bicycle delivery service from near the Bird Cage, taking plants, furniture, tiles, you, and your dog.
London’s Day of the Dead, 31 October
Columbia Road hosts London’s Day of the Dead on Saturday 31 October 2026, and it is free. Music, dance, flowers, costume and a procession.
Note the day. It is a Saturday, which is not a market day, so this is a reason to come on the one day of the week the street is otherwise quiet. Marigolds are central to the festival, which is why a flower market is where it ended up.
How the Sunday happened
The market began as a Saturday trade. As the Jewish population of the area grew, a Sunday market was established alongside it, and over time the Saturday one lapsed while the Sunday flower market grew. That is the whole reason this is a Sunday institution.
Plants originally came by handcart from market gardens in Hackney and Islington, and pitches were claimed on the day on the blow of a whistle.
The area declined in the 1970s and demolition was discussed. Local people fought it off, and from the 1980s the market grew into what it is now.
What to pair it with
The useful fact is that the Museum of the Home is at the same station. It is at 136 Kingsland Road, opposite Hoxton, it is free, and it opens Tuesday to Sunday. So a Sunday can be the market at eight and the museum at ten, with a seven minute walk between them. Our Museum of the Home page covers the hours and the gardens.
Brick Lane and Spitalfields are both Sunday markets within twenty minutes on foot, which makes a three market morning possible if you start early.
Columbia Road Flower Market
- Address
- Columbia Road, London E2, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets
- Nearest
- Hoxton on the Overground, about seven minutes. Liverpool Street, Old Street, Shoreditch High Street and Bethnal Green are each about 20 minutes. Buses 26, 55 and 8
- Hours
- Sundays from 8am until about 3pm. Some shops also open during the week
- Booking
- None. Turn up
- Price
- Cut flowers, dried flowers, succulents, cacti, house plants and herbs at well below florist prices
- Standing
- A street of around sixty independent businesses, and one of the few in the country composed entirely of them
How to get in
Parking is at Mulberry School, Gosset Street E2 6NW, from Warner Place or Turin Street, and the market warns that traffic wardens work the area hard. Pedal Me runs a bicycle delivery service from near the Bird Cage for anything too big to carry.
Where to go next
The Museum of the Home is free and opposite the same station, which makes it the obvious second stop on a Sunday morning.
Brick Lane and Spitalfields Market are both Sunday markets twenty minutes away, and the food markets page covers the rest of the city.
Questions we get asked
What time is Columbia Road Flower Market open?
Sundays from 8am until about 3pm, which the market itself writes as three-ish. It runs one day a week only, though some of the shops on the street open during the week.
What is the nearest station to Columbia Road Flower Market?
Hoxton, on the Overground, about seven minutes' walk. Liverpool Street, Old Street, Shoreditch High Street and Bethnal Green are each roughly twenty minutes away, which is the route most guides send you on.
What time should you go to Columbia Road Flower Market?
Eight in the morning for the pick of the stock and room to move, or around two in the afternoon, when traders would rather sell a tray than carry it home. Roughly eleven to one is the busiest and the hardest to walk through carrying plants.
Is Columbia Road Flower Market open on Saturday?
No. It began as a Saturday market, but a Sunday market was established as the Jewish population of the area grew and the Saturday trade lapsed. The one Saturday worth coming for is 31 October 2026, when the street hosts London's free Day of the Dead festival.
Can you park at Columbia Road Flower Market?
There is parking at Mulberry School, Gosset Street, E2 6NW, accessible from Warner Place or Turin Street. The market warns that the area is rich picking for traffic wardens, so read the kerbside notices carefully.
What can you buy at Columbia Road Flower Market?
Cut flowers, dried flowers, succulents, cacti, house plants and herbs, at prices well under a florist's. The stock changes with the season: Christmas trees in December and the start of the herb season in spring.
Written by Robert J Wills, no. 210 in the guide.
Last checked 5 October 2026 against the venues' own published information. Nobody pays to appear here and we take no bookings.
