Shops and Walthamstow Market
The High Street is dominated by Walthamstow Market, which began in 1885, and occupies all but the last 100 metres of the street. It is reputed to be a mile long, but in fact measures approximately one kilometre. The market is open five days a week (not Sunday or Monday), and there is currently a Sunday farmers' market. Occasionally, a 'French' market takes place although the stalls are not necessarily French. The street is lined with shops: a selection of high-street chains, but also many independent small shops specialising in food, fabrics, household goods etc. as well as cafés. The overall tone is downmarket and unique. There are two patches of new-ish development: at Sainsburys, and The Mall Selborne Walk covered shopping centre both of which have large multi-storey car parks.
The historic Central Library on the High Street was one of many built with money donated by the Scottish-American businessman and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, whose portrait bust can be seen on the exterior of the building. It was modernised and expanded in 2006-2007, although there were claims that this was at the expense of book holdings. According to the Waltham Forest Guardian, "almost a quarter of a million books have gone missing from Waltham Forest libraries amid claims they have been burned or pulped" and the borough's library stock fell by 60% over the two previous years. At the same time, a large plot at the corner of High Street and Hoe Street was set for substantial redevelopment as a retail space. This site was previously the location of the town's central Post Office and a shopping arcade, originally built in the 1960s. Plans for the redevelopment of this site fell through in 2005. It is now a pedestrianised area and is occasionally used as a site for funfairs, charity events, the council's Christmas tree and various other activities.
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Famous quotes containing the words shops and/or market:
“In an age robbed of religious symbols, going to the shops replaces going to the church.... We have a free choice, but at a price. We can win experience, but never achieve innocence. Marx knew that the epic activities of the modern world involve not lance and sword but dry goods.”
—Stephen Bayley (b. 1951)
“I respect not his labors, his farm where everything has its price, who would carry the landscape, who would carry his God, to market, if he could get anything for him; who goes to market for his god as it is; on whose farm nothing grows free, whose fields bear no crops, whose meadows no flowers, whose trees no fruit, but dollars; who loves not the beauty of his fruits, whose fruits are not ripe for him till they are turned to dollars. Give me the poverty that enjoys true wealth.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)