Urban Makers Weekend Market — Sunday 16 August
By Urban MakersUp to 30 independent makers in the covered hall at Old Spitalfields. Free entry, 10am–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
Chisel & Chestnut
Woodwork
I carve kuksa cups and small bowls from burr and crotch wood, the lumpy awkward bits of a tree that a sawmill rejects because the grain goes everywhere. That chaotic grain is exactly what makes the finished piece beautiful. I hollow with a hook knife and an adze, then finish with several coats of flaxseed oil, and each cup gets seasoned with salt water before it leaves me. They are for coffee by a fire rather than the dishwasher, and I say that clearly.
Hearth & Hush
Candles & home fragrance
I pour into vessels I cast myself from jesmonite, in a speckled terrazzo made with crushed offcuts from previous batches.
Ink & Iron Press
Print & illustration
I print letterpress on an Adana platen press that weighs more than I do, setting each line from trays of metal type.
Kettle Drum Coffee
Food & drink
I roast on a 3kg drum roaster in a unit under the arches, usually three days a week, and I buy green coffee from two importers who publish what the farmer was paid.
Matchstick Mornings
Candles & home fragrance
I make candles for the start of the day rather than the end of it, which nobody else seems to be doing. Coffee grounds and grapefruit, hot buttered toast, a cold clean mint. They come in short wide tins so they light quickly and go out without drama. The wax is a soy and coconut blend and I pour about sixty a week in a shared kitchen unit. Every tin comes with a strip of long matches, because hunting for a lighter at seven in the morning is miserable.
Nightshift Etching
Print & illustration
I drive a night bus four evenings a week and draw everything I see from the cab in a pocket sketchbook at the terminus.
Signature & Spine
Stationery
I rebind damaged books and make blank journals in the same traditional structures. Full leather, quarter cloth, rounded and backed spines, headbands sewn in silk. The repairs come to me through word of mouth, usually a family bible or a cookbook that has fallen apart from being loved. For markets I bring journals and guest books bound in the same way, plus a few rescued volumes I have rebound speculatively. I letter spines with real gold leaf and a heated tool, which is unforgiving work.
Soot & Saffron
Candles & home fragrance
I hand-roll incense the way my aunt taught me, mixing powdered woods, resins and gums with water into a stiff paste, then rolling it onto bamboo sticks and drying them flat for a week. Nothing is dipped in fragrance oil, which is how most incense is made and why so much of it smells thin. My blends are frankincense and orange peel, sandalwood and saffron, and a heavy oud for winter. I sell them in bundles of thirty with a small ceramic holder.
Steam & Sage
Bath & body
I make things for the shower rather than the bath, because most London flats do not have one. Steam tablets you drop on the shower floor, a salt scrub in a jar, and a solid conditioner bar that took eleven attempts to get right. The eucalyptus and sage blend is the one people come back for, especially in January. Everything is made in small batches in a certified kitchen and packaged in card and aluminium, no plastic bottles anywhere in the range at all.
The Dried Bunch
Plants & florals
I grow and dry everything myself on an allotment in Walthamstow.
Organised by
Moderate refunds. Full refund available until 7 days before the event.
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