Urban Makers at Old Spitalfields — Wednesday 19 August
By Urban MakersOur weekly midweek maker market in the covered hall at Old Spitalfields. Free entry, 11am–5pm.
About this event
Where
Old Spitalfields Market
16 Horner Square, Spitalfields, London E1 6EW
Good to know
Free entry
No ticket needed — just turn up. Bring a bag for life.
Step-free access
The whole market is step-free with accessible toilets on site.
Getting here
Please travel by public transport or bike — there is no visitor parking.
Meet the makers
Endgrain & Co
Woodwork
My speciality is end-grain butcher's blocks, where the wood is cut into cubes and glued standing up so the knife goes between the fibres rather than across them.
Foundry Fern
Jewellery
I do my own casting, which most makers at my scale send out. A small centrifugal caster, a burnout kiln and a lot of patience. I carve the originals in blue wax, so the models are properly sculptural: chunky fern-frond rings, ridged bands, a pendant like a rolled leaf. All the silver is recycled and the scrap goes straight back into the crucible. If you want a size that is not on the table, I will take the order and post it within a fortnight.
Kiln Formed
Glass
I fuse and slump glass in a kiln rather than blowing it, so my work is flat: dishes, coasters, small wall panels and jewellery. I stack sheet glass with layers of powder and stringer between them, fire it to 800 degrees to fuse, then fire again over a mould to give it a shape. Each firing cycle takes eighteen hours including the cooling, so nothing is quick. Colours are deliberately restrained, mostly steel blue, olive and a warm smoky grey that suits British light.
Koji & Co
Food & drink
I grow koji on barley in an incubator I built from a broken wine fridge, then use it to make miso, shio koji and a fermented chilli paste.
Lost Wax Lane
Jewellery
I carve wax models under a magnifying lamp, which is how I lose whole afternoons.
Peculiar Pies
Food & drink
I make hand-raised pies with a hot water crust, moulded around a wooden dolly rather than baked in a tin, so they stand up on their own and have that thick shattering pastry. Fillings are pork and sage, a spiced mutton, and a mushroom and stout one for the vegetarians which took me a year to get right. Meat comes from a butcher in Kent who tells me the farm. Everything is baked the morning of a market and sold at room temperature with a pot of mustard.
Quiet Hammer
Jewellery
My whole range is forged from a single gauge of square wire, twisted, tapered and curled into bangles, ear cuffs and open rings that you squeeze to fit. Because it is all one material there is very little waste, and offcuts get soldered into chain links. I work in brass for the affordable end and silver above that. The finish is deliberately dark, brought back with beeswax rather than lacquer, so it keeps ageing after it leaves me.
Slipstone Studio
Ceramics
I make functional tableware for people who cook a lot. Deep pasta bowls, a jug that pours without dribbling, plates sized for the way we actually eat rather than for a photograph. I throw in a grogged stoneware, turn the feet crisply, and glaze in satin white over a coloured slip so a line of pigment shows at every edge. It all goes in the dishwasher and the oven, which matters to me. New shapes live in my kitchen for a month before they join the range.
Slow Grown Plants
Plants & florals
I grow herbs and vegetable plants from seed in a lean-to greenhouse and sell them as young plants for windowsills and balconies. Nothing is forced with heat or fed on liquid feed to look impressive on the stall, so my plants are smaller than the garden centre ones and considerably tougher once you get them home. There is basil, three mints, thyme, chillies and a good tomato for pots. I grow in peat-free compost and reuse pots, and I will happily take yours back.
Stained & Salvaged
Glass
I work in copper foil, the finer technique where each glass piece is wrapped in adhesive copper tape and soldered, so the lines can be much thinner than lead allows.
Sunday Metals
Jewellery
I run a bench in a shared workshop and make in weekly batches, which is where the name comes from.
The Drawing Shed
Print & illustration
My work is portraits of pets, done in ink and coloured pencil with a lot of attention to whiskers and the exact wrongness of an individual dog's ears.
The Marbled Edge
Stationery
I marble paper on a tray of thickened water, floating paint on the surface and combing it into patterns before laying a sheet on top to lift the image.
Two Left Thumbs
Ceramics
I am entirely self-taught and my pots look it, cheerfully.
Organised by
Moderate refunds. Full refund available until 7 days before the event.
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