Shepherd's Bush Market is for me a little concentrated part of a forgotten London, or rather the London that many choose to forget. It's not a pretty market and doesn't have the over-priced vintage/antique/crafty stalls that many East London counterparts now have. It's a real market with stalls selling produce, fabric, household goods, knock-off CDs/DVDs and dodgy women's nighties.
Stretching from Goldhawk Road to Uxbridge Road parallel with the Hammersmith and City Underground line the rattling along of tubes adds to the many languages that fill your ears as you dodge puddles and rubbish underfoot and breathe in the not always pleasant smells of market trading.
As a budding beginner seamstress (I wanted to put sewer, but that is wrong, right?!) I love the many haberdashery shops that feature and as a lover (not buyer) of tack I marvel at the stalls of useless plastic household items and ornaments. You can also find cobblers, hairdressers, kebab shops and leather goods tucked away under the arches. Be prepared to find some of the best banter too from the green grocers at the Goldhawk Road entrance - when recently buying mistletoe there I was charged "50p and a kiss". I paid his charming toothless self £1.
They recently changed the opening arch sign for the market to a character deprived shiny new colourful one. I look forward to it fading and becoming a bit battered and bruised.
Shepherd's Bush Market is essential to Shepherd's Bush and not just economically. It (literally) feeds the diversity, mess and oddities I love the area for. It also provides the rest of us with cheap goods, a few laughs and occasionally something we need.
