Petticoat Lane Market

Summary

East London’s oldest market — Middlesex Street’s Sunday street market has a documented history from the 16th century and operates on a Victorian street plan adjacent to Liverpool Street.

About this location

Petticoat Lane Market (officially Middlesex Street Market) runs along Middlesex Street and adjoining streets in Spitalfields on Sunday mornings, covering the full length of Middlesex Street and spreading into Wentworth Street, Bell Lane, and surrounding alleys. The market specialises in clothing, fabrics, and general goods, maintaining a working-class East End character that has ely changed in register since the market’s post-war period. The streets themselves are Victorian — Middlesex Street runs in a straight line from Aldgate High Street, lined by four-storey Victorian commercial buildings on both sides.

The market has appeared in British film and television productions across multiple decades when an authentic East End street market exterior is required. The Sunday operating time gives the market its best visual character — stalls, crowds, and street-trading activity create a density of human presence and commercial activity that reads immediately as London East End. The architecture behind the stalls is Victorian commercial in good condition.

Tower Hamlets Council handles filming permits for the market streets. Sunday morning filming in an active market requires negotiation with individual stallholders as well as the council licensing team. The market competes for screen time with Spitalfields to the north and Brick Lane to the east; productions can combine all three within a 500-metre area.