A short street between grass and water
Broadway Market runs south from the corner of London Fields to the Regent's Canal, a walk of a few minutes when the street is empty. During the week it is a row of small shops, cafés, pubs and a bookshop, busy in the evening and unremarkable in the best sense. On Saturday a food market fills the road from one end to the other, stalls down the middle and along both pavements, and much of E8 seems to come down to it.
It has been a market street for a very long time, but the Saturday market in its present form dates from the early two thousands, when the street was on its uppers and a group of locals brought the stalls back. It worked far better than anybody expected. Today it is one of the defining sights of London Fields and the easiest Saturday in Hackney, which is exactly why it needs a little planning.
How the day fills up
The stalls set up in the morning, and for the first couple of hours the street is walkable: you can see from one end to the other, stop at a counter and talk to the person behind it. Somewhere in the late morning the pace changes. By midday the middle of the street is shoulder to shoulder, the queues at the popular stalls run into each other, and getting from the park to the canal takes three times as long as it should.
The afternoon thins again as the stalls sell out and start to pack away. So there are two good versions of the day. Arrive early, eat standing up, and be sitting somewhere by the water before the crush. Or arrive late, let the crowd leave first, and have the last hour of the market largely to yourselves. The middle of the day is for people who enjoy crowds.
The Netil Market detour
At the top of the street, where Broadway Market meets the park, turn east along Westgate Street and within a minute or two you reach Netil Market, a small yard of food counters and stalls beside the Netil House studios. On a Saturday it draws a fraction of the main street's crowd, and it has somewhere to sit, which in E8 at noon is worth more than any menu.
It is the move that keeps the day pleasant. Walk down Broadway Market early, cut back up to Netil for something to eat when the main street fills, then cross the park or head down to the water when the crowd starts to thin. Very few of the people standing in the long queues at midday ever think of it.
Down at the canal
The street ends at a bridge over the Regent's Canal, and the towpath runs both ways beneath it. West takes you towards Haggerston and eventually Islington. East runs along the water to Victoria Park in a quarter of an hour or so, past moored narrowboats and the backs of old industrial buildings now turned into flats. On a fine Saturday the canal edge by the bridge is where people end up sitting with whatever they bought.
The towpath is shared with bicycles and runners and it is narrow in places, so walk it in single file where it pinches and side by side where it opens out. If tomorrow is Sunday, the flower market in E2 is a walk of twenty minutes or so away; our note on Columbia Road before nine explains how to catch it before the crowd arrives.
A couple, and a third for the day
A fair share of the Saturday bookings around here come from couples who want company for an afternoon, and a market street is one of the easiest settings for it. There is always something to look at, nobody has to carry the conversation alone, and three people eating at a stall draws no attention whatsoever. The couples booking is exactly that: two adults booking the time and company of a third, on the same ladder and the same terms as any other evening.
Both of you should write, or at the very least both of you should be named in the message, with a line on what each of you wants from the day. That is what lets the desk suggest someone who suits you both rather than one of you. What is booked is her time and her company for the hours agreed, and nothing else is offered, implied or arranged.
Names who know the street
Jasmin works London Fields and the Broadway Market end of E8. She is small and fast and always the first to suggest one more stop, which on this street is usually a good idea. Tina, from the Amhurst Road side of Hackney, is small, strong and entirely unfazed by a crowd, which on a Saturday at noon is a real asset. Both are on the petite shortlist, seven names long.
Nora is not petite, but she works beside the park, is honey blonde and quick on her feet, and is very hard to rattle. Tina and Nora both appear on the toned list as well. The rest of the board takes couples bookings on the same terms, though not everybody on it chooses to, and the desk only ever suggests the women who do.
Lengths for a Saturday
Two hours at £500 fits an early market and a coffee by the canal. Four hours at £900 is the length most couples choose here: the market, lunch sitting down, the towpath and a drink somewhere afterwards. Three hours at £700 sits between the two. The figure is for the booking, not for each of you.
Tell the desk where to meet, which end of the street and at what time, and Nell will confirm with her name and the minute she will be there. Her travel is inside the figure. The fee is handed to her in person once she is with you, and the full ladder is on rates.
Filed under: most of the names in this note also sit on the brunettes list in the shortlists.