Search for Spitalfields Market and you get two official looking websites, both ranking, both describing a market in the same corner of E1. They publish different addresses, different opening hours and different names, and neither explains the other.
Google’s own results page now carries the question people keep asking: what is the difference between Spitalfields Market and Old Spitalfields Market. Nobody answers it, so here is the answer, read off both sites on 28 September 2026.
Old Spitalfields Market is the Victorian hall. Its address is 16 Horner Square and it is the covered building with the iron roof. Spitalfields Market, at spitalfields.co.uk, is the wider estate around it, including the Traders Market under the canopy in Crispin Place and the public squares built in the 2005 regeneration. They are neighbours on the same block, they keep different hours, and the bit you want decides which set of times to trust.
The Victorian hall
Old Spitalfields Market, 16 Horner Square
The building a former market porter paid 80,000 pounds to put up in 1893.
Old Spitalfields Market
- Address
- 16 Horner Square, London E1 6EW
- Nearest
- Liverpool Street, five minutes. Shoreditch High Street, seven. Aldgate East, eight. Moorgate, fourteen
- Hours
- Daily market Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday 10am to 8pm. Thursday 8am to 6pm. Saturday 10am to 6pm. Sunday 10am to 5pm. The Kitchens run 11am to 6pm Monday to Saturday and 11am to 5pm on Sunday
- Booking
- No booking. Open all year including Easter and the May and August bank holidays
- Standing
- The original covered market hall, with 45 food and drink operators and 60 shops and stalls under one Victorian roof, seven days a week
How to get in
Thursday is the day that behaves differently and it is worth understanding why. The hall opens at eight rather than ten on a Thursday because Thursday is the Antiques Market, and dealers start early. That is not a modern scheduling choice: the Royal Charter granted by Charles II in 1682 gave the right to hold a market here on Thursdays and Saturdays, and Thursday has been the trading day ever since. There is a vinyl market and a rotation of one off markets alongside the daily one. The Kitchens, in the centre of the floor, is the street food operation and keeps its own shorter hours. The weekday close has settled: rechecked on 6 October 2026, the visitor information page now gives Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday as 10am to 8pm, resolving an earlier contradiction on that same page which showed 6pm in the body and 8pm in the footer. Thursday still closes at 6pm despite its 8am start, so the antiques day is the short one.
The estate around it, and the Spitalfields restaurants in it
Spitalfields Market, Crispin Place and Bishops Square
The regenerated streets and squares, with the canopied Traders Market at the centre.
Spitalfields Market
- Address
- Crispin Place and Bishops Square, E1, wrapped around the Victorian hall
- Nearest
- Liverpool Street, four minutes by rail and five by tube. Aldgate East, seven. Shoreditch High Street, eight
- Hours
- The site is open Monday to Friday 8am to 11pm and Saturday and Sunday 9am to 11pm. Traders Market 10am to 6pm Sunday to Friday and 11am to 5pm on Saturday. Retail shops 10am to 6pm daily. Street food kiosks on Lamb Street 10am to 3pm
- Booking
- No booking. Wheelchair and pushchair accessible throughout the canopied market
- Standing
- Up to 110 stalls on the busiest days, under a weatherproof canopy in Crispin Place, with a separate Saturday Style Market of up to 88 independent designers
How to get in
The single most useful fact here is the one nobody prints: the restaurants on this side of the block close at four in the afternoon on Saturday and Sunday, against half past nine on a weekday. Turn up for a late weekend lunch and you will be eating from a kiosk, and the Lamb Street kiosks stop at three. The Traders Market is also shortest on Saturday, 11am to 5pm, because Saturday is given over to the Style Market and its designers instead. No food or drink is sold from the market stalls at all, by policy, so the eating and the shopping are separate operations in separate parts of the site.
Why there are two of everything
The short version is that the market outgrew the site and left, and what came back was split in two.
Spitalfields is older than almost anything else trading in London. The name comes from St Mary’s Spittel, the hospital and priory founded in 1197, and the market began in a field beside it in the thirteenth century. By 1666 traders were working the ground the market stands on now, and in 1682 Charles II granted John Balch a Royal Charter for a market on Thursdays and Saturdays in or near Spital Square.
The hall you walk into was built in 1893. The market had fallen into decline by 1876, and a former market porter called Robert Horner bought a short lease and put up a new building at a cost of 80,000 pounds. That is why the address is Horner Square. The City of London took direct control in 1920 and extended the buildings eight years later.
The wholesale market left in May 1991. Sixty years of growth had filled the narrow streets around it with traffic and there was no room to expand, so the fruit and vegetable trade moved to a new site at Leyton in east London, where it still is.
The regeneration finished at the end of 2005, after eighteen years of work, and created Bishops Square and Crispin Place, a public art programme, and the restored streets around them. That is the estate the second website covers. The hall is the first one.
Which day to go
Thursday for antiques. The hall opens at eight rather than ten because the Antiques Market runs that day, and the dealers are there from the start. It is the only early opening of the week.
Saturday for design, but not for lunch. The Saturday Style Market brings up to 88 independent designers, and it is the one day given over to them. It is also the shortest day, 11am to 5pm, and the estate restaurants shut at four.
Weekdays for the fullest market. The Traders Market runs 10am to 6pm Monday to Friday with up to 110 stalls on its busiest days, which is more than either weekend day offers.
The first weekend of the month for art. The Arts Market, affordable work from new and established artists, sets up in Market Street once a month from Friday to Sunday: 2 to 4 October, 6 to 8 November and 4 to 6 December 2026.
Sunday is the traditional answer and no longer the obvious one. The market’s own history page makes the point that Spitalfields is no longer just a Sunday destination. The hall closes at five on a Sunday, earlier than any other day.
Everything above was taken from the two markets’ own published information and rechecked in full on 28 September 2026. Where their own pages contradict each other, and in one case where a single page contradicts itself, both versions are given rather than one being quietly chosen. Confirm before you travel.
Where to go next
Brick Lane is a short walk east, and its markets keep different hours from this one.
Shoreditch is the neighbourhood this sits in, and the Shoreditch restaurants cover where to eat once the market kitchens have closed, which at weekends is earlier than you think.
Fish and chips covers Poppies on Hanbury Street, three minutes from the hall and frying until eleven from Thursday to Saturday. Vietnamese covers Kingsland Road, a short walk north.
Borough Market is the other great London market and the direct comparison: older trade, different days, and a single website that agrees with itself.
London’s food markets covers the Kitchens here against the other halls, including the two that serve until eleven at night.
For the other two of the big three, Camden Market opens every day of the year except Christmas Day, and Portobello Road is really only a Friday and Saturday market whose antique arcades open on Saturdays alone.
Questions we get asked
What is the difference between Spitalfields Market and Old Spitalfields Market?
Old Spitalfields Market is the covered Victorian hall at 16 Horner Square, built in 1893. Spitalfields Market, at spitalfields.co.uk, is the wider regenerated estate around it, including the canopied Traders Market in Crispin Place and Bishops Square, completed in 2005. They sit on the same block, run separate websites and publish different opening hours, so check the one covering the part you want.
What is the best day to visit Spitalfields Market?
Thursday if you want antiques, because the hall opens at eight rather than ten for the Antiques Market. Saturday if you want design, for the Style Market and its 88 independent traders, though it is the shortest day at 11am to 5pm. A weekday if you want the fullest market, since the Traders Market runs 10am to 6pm with up to 110 stalls.
What tube station is closest to Spitalfields Market?
Liverpool Street, about five minutes on foot and served by the Central, Circle, Hammersmith and City, Metropolitan and Elizabeth lines as well as national rail. Aldgate East is seven to eight minutes, Shoreditch High Street on the Overground is seven, Aldgate is eleven and Moorgate is about fourteen.
What time do the restaurants at Spitalfields Market close?
It depends which side you are on, and this catches people out at weekends. The restaurants on the Spitalfields estate run 10am to 9.30pm Monday to Friday but only 10am to 4pm on Saturday and Sunday. The street food kiosks on Lamb Street stop at 3pm daily. The Kitchens inside the Victorian hall run later at weekends, to 6pm on Saturday and 5pm on Sunday.
Is Spitalfields Market open on a Sunday?
Yes, both parts. The Victorian hall opens 10am to 5pm, which is its earliest close of the week. The Traders Market on the estate runs 10am to 6pm. The estate restaurants stop serving at 4pm on a Sunday, so arrive before then if lunch is the point of the trip.
How old is Spitalfields Market?
The market began in a field beside St Mary’s Spittel, a priory founded in 1197, in the thirteenth century. Charles II granted a Royal Charter for a market here on Thursdays and Saturdays in 1682. The hall standing today was built by Robert Horner in 1893 at a cost of 80,000 pounds, and the wholesale trade moved out to Leyton in May 1991.
Written by Robert J Wills, no. 120 in the guide.
Last checked 28 September 2026 against the venues' own published information. Nobody pays to appear here and we take no bookings.
