Ridley Road Market

Ridley Road Market has been at the heart of Dalston since the 1880s. What started as a Victorian street market is now a place where different cultures and trades sit side by side. Colourful stalls and awnings line the street where Afro-Caribbean grocers sell plantains and scotch bonnets next to Turkish bakers, West African fabric sellers, and halal butchers. Behind the counters stand the people who make this place work. Some have been here for decades, others are newer to the trade, but they're all part of the same daily routine of setting up early and the familiar exchanges with regulars. But this isn't just a place to buy groceries. It's where people actually meet, where community builds itself between conversations at fish stalls and the graft of packing up at day's end. That sense of community has always mattered here. In the 1960s, locals and activists stood together against fascist demonstrations, defending the market and the mix of people it represented. Today it keeps doing things the old way while the rest of the city moves online. People still haggle face to face, argue about whether the yams are any good, unload lorries by hand, and turn a simple shopping trip into a way of being part of the neighbourhood.