A few weeks ago, I discovered that since the Great Fire of London in 1666, Covent Garden (my favourite part of London) had been the most important wholesale food market in the UK. By the 1960s, Covent Garden was choked by gridlock due to lorries trying to get in and out of the market. So in 1974, the market was picked up and moved to south-west London.

From Wikipedia:

New Covent Garden Market is a wholesale fruit, vegetable and flower market, known as ‘London’s Larder’, located in Nine Elms between Vauxhall and Battersea, South West London. Covering a site of 56 acres (227,000 m²), it contains approximately 250 fruit, vegetable and flower companies.

The Market is run by a government agency, the Covent Garden Market Authority, set up in 1961 and charged with modernising and overseeing the administration of the vegetable market which was considered strategically important as a wholesale food and flower market, providing ingredients for London’s restaurants, schools, prisons, hospitals and other mass caterers.

I was very excited to read this because the New Covent Garden Market is within walking distance of my house. I sent an email to ask whether or not I could do my grocery shopping there.

I got a reply the next morning. The answer was essentially: ‘Only if you want to buy fruit and veg by the pallet-load’!