13.06.2012 / World Bulletin
Back to Brixton
Back in the days when Brixton was the shopping capital of South London, silent film star Carl Brisson officially opened a covered market arcade called Granville Arcade with an interior of narrow covered streets called ‘Avenues’.
It was the year 1937, and a lot of water has passed under the bridge since then. Yet, during the last two years, this place – currently known as Brixton Village – has been undergoing a huge renaissance, just like the neighborhood that surrounds it.
Today, Brixton Village and its companion arcade Market Row house scores of shops offering a wide variety of world foods, from India, East Asia, Africa, South America and the Caribbean, as well as some famous cafés and everything from traditional chinese medicine to tattoo parlours.
Everything began in 2009, when Spacemakers, an enterprise that reconverts neglected and abandoned buildings in the UK, took upon itself the task of reviving this 1930s indoor market which had an important place in the history of Brixton, but had fallen on hard times with many market units left empty.
The project consisted in offering shops for up to three months rent free to temporary creative and community projects or new local business start-​ups, and the response was huge. Over the following months, the previously run down side of the market became home to a rolling programme of pop-​ups, new shops and cafes.
Today, Brixton Village hosts long-term businesses like restaurants, bars, boutiques and bakeries, and wandering around the Avenues feels like shopping and eating your way around the whole world.
There are Caribbean goods, exotic fruits, Jamaican flags, Pakistani food, Colombian eateries, Italian pizzerias, shops selling local products and experimental art spaces. In other words, everything you need to spend a great day (and night) under beneath the beautiful glass roof.
Brixton Village and Market Row are open Mon-Wed 8am till 6pm, Thurs-Sat 8am till midnight, and Sundays till 5pm.
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