Brick Lane on a Sunday: Beigels, Vinyl, Vintage and the Best Street Art in London

Brick Lane on a Sunday morning in February is cold and loud, and by half past ten it smells faintly of frying onions. Every wall is covered in paint. Somebody is selling a filing cabinet, four amplifiers and a mannequin in a wedding dress off the pavement.

Somebody else is flicking through a crate of records, on a road that has had a Sunday market since the nineteenth century.

I go back every few months, and it is never the same street twice, because the walls keep being repainted. These photos are from Sunday 23 February 2025. Here is what to see, when to go, and which of the famous things are worth the queue.

Why Is It Called Brick Lane?

The name is not poetic. The street was once Whitechapel Lane, winding through fields. It became Brick Lane because of the brick and tile works that dug the local brick earth from the fifteenth century. Everything since has been layered on top of that.

Who Has Lived on Brick Lane?

In the seventeenth century, French Huguenot weavers fleeing persecution settled here and in Spitalfields next door. Their tall houses still stand around Fournier Street, with wide attic windows built to let light onto a loom.

In the nineteenth century, Irish and then Jewish families arrived. The Sunday market grew out of a government dispensation that let Jewish traders sell on a Sunday, just as the markets on Petticoat Lane and Columbia Road did.

From the middle of the twentieth century, Bengali families, most of them from Sylhet, made this the centre of Bangladeshi London. The area was branded Banglatown in 1997, and the local ward became Spitalfields and Banglatown in 2002.

Why Was the Brick Lane Mosque Once a Church and a Synagogue?

The best illustration of all this stands on the corner of Fournier Street. It was built in 1743 as a Huguenot church, La Neuve Eglise. It became a Methodist chapel in 1819, then a synagogue at the end of the nineteenth century.

Since 1976 it has been the Brick Lane Jamme Masjid. One building, four congregations, three faiths, the same walls. It is listed Grade II*.

High on the side is a sundial dated 1743, with the motto Umbra Sumus: we are shadows. The Huguenots put it there, and it has outlasted all of them.

Where Is the Best Street Art on Brick Lane?

Brick Lane and the streets running off it are packed with street art. The walls are repainted so often that half of what you photograph will be gone in six months. That is the point rather than a problem.

The most famous piece is on a shutter by the beigel shops: David Bowie eating a beigel, painted by Benzi Brofman. He has a third-eye symbol on his forehead, and above him, London's first and best beigel shop is lettered in turquoise.

Because it is painted on a roller shutter, you only see it when the shutter is down. I found it down on a Sunday morning.

The other piece everybody comes for is the crane by the Belgian artist ROA, at the corner of Hanbury Street. It is black and white and several storeys high. He painted it in 2010, and it has survived in a place where almost nothing does.

ROA had planned a heron. Bengali neighbours asked him whether it was a crane, a sacred bird in their culture, and he made it one. The wall belongs to a restaurant, and the bird has become part of the street.

Beyond those two, just walk. Try Hanbury Street, Fashion Street, Sclater Street, Grimsby Street under the railway, Redchurch Street and the Truman Brewery yard. Look for tags layered six deep on shutters, and the tiny pieces at knee height that nobody notices.

Elsewhere, a giant pink and yellow face stares out above a silver Pola Brapp tag. It is signed OBEY across the forehead. When I stopped, a man was walking a shaggy dog past it.

When Is Brick Lane Market On?

Sunday is the day. The street market runs along Brick Lane and spills into Cheshire Street and Sclater Street. It is really two markets under one name.

At the northern end is a scruffy, wonderful car boot of tools, bikes, records, phone chargers and furniture. Further south, the Old Truman Brewery holds the covered halls, with food, vintage clothes and independent designers.

One stall had old keyboards, microphones and crates of vinyl set out under a pink mural, with Ella in Hollywood at the front.

The covered halls are the reliable part, and they run whatever the weather, which matters in February. Upmarket, at 83 Brick Lane, has become a food hall with more than 40 street food traders, open every day of the week.

Outside, the best stalls look the least organised. One trestle under a white gazebo was hung with military dress jackets in red, black and gold. Below them sat peaked caps, leather gloves, army boots and a Union Jack.

Bring cash for the outdoor stalls, because many traders still prefer it, and haggle gently rather than hard.

On Saturdays the street is quieter and the shops are open. On a weekday it is an ordinary, slightly frayed East End road with curry houses on it, and you will have the murals to yourself.

Which Beigel Shop on Brick Lane Is Better?

At the north end are two beigel shops almost next door to each other, one with a white front and one yellow. Londoners have opinions about which is better, and they will not be talked out of them.

Both sell the same essential thing: a dense, chewy, boiled beigel. Have it with salt beef and fierce English mustard, or with smoked salmon and cream cheese.

Beigel Bake, the white one, opened in 1974 and never closes. That is why you can find people eating salt beef at four in the morning.

How Do You Choose a Curry House on Brick Lane?

The curry houses in the middle stretch are the other institution. The trick is to ignore whoever stands outside offering a discount and a free drink. Go on recommendation, or go by how full the room is.

Bangladeshi restaurants have fed this street for decades, and the good ones do not need to shout. For something quicker, the Truman yard has street food and pastries.

Which Shops on Brick Lane Are Worth Going Into?

Vintage is the reason many people come, and it runs from carefully curated to gloriously chaotic. There are big warehouses selling by the kilo, and small dealers with rails of leather and suede.

One pavement frontage is a heap of lamps, chairs, ironing boards and mannequins. The hand-painted sign above it reads Luxury Junk, which is the most honest shop name in London.

My favourite is the props and signage stall, stacked almost to the ceiling. There are theatre letters, BBC Live Recording boxes, peep show arrows, a red heart with wings, gilt mirrors, fake fur hats and handbags. You will not need any of it. You will want most of it.

For books, Brick Lane Bookshop at number 166 is small and very well chosen. It grew out of a community bookshop founded in 1977 by the Tower Hamlets Arts Project.

Rough Trade East, the record shop in the Old Truman Brewery, hosts in-store gigs and has a marquee sign out front. When I passed in February 2025, it announced Blindness, the new album by The Murder Capital.

If rummaging is your thing, the Classic Car Boot Sale at King's Cross is the other London vintage day I would clear a weekend for.

What Is the Best Route Around Brick Lane?

Start at the north end by the beigel shops at about half past nine, when the shutters are still coming up and the Bowie is visible. Eat a beigel standing on the pavement, because that is how it is done.

Walk south through the car boot end. Detour left into Cheshire Street for the dealers, then come back and turn into Hanbury Street for the ROA crane. Carry on to the Old Truman Brewery for the covered markets and Rough Trade.

Come out at the south end past the mosque and turn right into Fournier Street for the Huguenot houses. It is one of the most beautiful Georgian streets in London, and it is often empty. Finish at Spitalfields Market for lunch.

Allow two and a half hours, and you will have walked through four centuries.

Visiting Brick Lane: Practical Notes

📍 Where it is: Brick Lane, London E1 and E2. It runs from Osborn Street, off Whitechapel High Street, north through Spitalfields and across Bethnal Green Road to Swanfield Street.

🚇 Getting there: Shoreditch High Street on the Overground is about five minutes' walk, and Aldgate East about eight. Liverpool Street is ten minutes from the south end. Don't drive.

📅 When: Sunday, roughly 10am to 5pm, for the full market. Saturday for the shops and a quieter street. Any weekday morning for the street art and clean photographs.

🎫 Cost: Free to walk, and as cheap or expensive as you make it. Bring cash for the outdoor stalls.

☕ Food: Beigel Bake (open 24 hours), the Beigel Shop next door, the curry houses, and Upmarket food hall, open Monday to Saturday 11am to 6pm and Sunday 10am to 6pm.

What to know: Sundays are crowded to the point of shuffling, so keep your bag in front of you. Ignore the restaurant touts. If you photograph traders or their stalls, ask first.

🗺️ Nearby: Spitalfields Market, Columbia Road flower market on Sunday mornings, the Whitechapel Gallery, and the City with the free rooftop terrace at 25 Cannon Street. For more London walks, try New Year's Day in Notting Hill or a frozen morning in Warren Mews.

Brick Lane is not a beautiful street, and it has never pretended to be. It is a four-hundred-year argument between everyone who has ever arrived in London, conducted in brick, spray paint, salt beef and secondhand furniture.

So, which Brick Lane will you go for: the beigels, the vintage or the walls?

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All photos were taken by Ina/WithinLondon, unless stated otherwise.