Portobello Road Market

Portobello Road began as a rural lane leading to Portobello Farm, itself named to commemorate a British naval victory at Puerto Bello, Panama, in 1739. Farmers sold produce along the lane through the 18th and 19th centuries, but the market's identity as an antiques destination took shape after the Second World War, when dealers displaced by the closure of Islington's disreputable Caledonian Market relocated here, and cemented further during the Swinging Sixties, when Notting Hill's countercultural, fashionable crowd made the area genuinely cool.

Today the market stretches roughly two kilometres and shifts character block by block: antiques and bric-a-brac stalls cluster near the southern end, fresh fruit and veg run mid-route Monday to Wednesday, and vintage clothing, jewellery and street food take over further north toward the Westway flyover, with the Portobello Green Arcade adding designer and vintage fashion stalls under the motorway itself.