Wednesday markets in London

Good for: antiques
Alfie’s is packed to the rafters with handsome twentieth-century home decor, hosting more than 100 dealers in vintage furniture and fashion, art, accessories, books, maps and more.

Good for: food, lunch
This small, buzzy street market, in a sometimes sleazy area, is one of London’s oldest. It plays host to a good variety of street food stalls over the lunchtime rush hour.

Good for: food
Compared to the culinary homogeneity of Borough market et al, Brixton is a sensory fiesta. The air is thick with the sizzle of jerk chicken stalls, tinny reggae riddims and yam-based price disputes while the multi-coloured hues of exotic fish displays glimmer like a whiffy rainbow.

Good for: clothing, souvenirs
Camden’s sprawling collection of markets offers a real smörgåsbord of street culture. Wander past loitering goths and punks to join the throng of tourists, locals and random celebs fighting it out at the vast and varied selection of shops and stalls.

Good for: food, crafts
Although something of a London institution, Covent Garden Market is too commercial and generally too crowded to provide a particularly characterful retail experience. However, the colonnaded 19th-century building is impressive, and occasionally some of the performers and entertainers can even be worth watching.

Good for: household goods
Most of Deptford Market is your standard south/east London fare: three-pack pants, timber wolf fleeces, Duracells and lighters. Halfway down its length, though, is a distended gut of impacted crap, presided over by two tennis umpires up stepladders who take money, dispense change and guard against pilfering.

Good for: food, crafts
There are plenty of stalls selling bric-a-brac, second-hand clothes, ethnic ornaments, CDs, crafts and jewellery galore at Greenwich Market. On Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday, the space is given over to arts, craft and food stalls.

Good for: food, lunch
Popular, upbeat lunchtime market selling cut-price clothing and household items, plus flowers, gifts, fruit and veg and excellent street food.

Good for: food
A street market since Victorian times, there’s some quality veg, women’s clothes, decent jewellery and vintage shops.