Queen's Crescent Market is an outdoor street market held every Thursday and Saturday on Queen’s Crescent in Kentish Town, Camden between the junction with Malden Road in the West and the junction with Grafton Road in the East. Licences to trade are issued by Camden London Borough Council. The market sells food, discounted clothing and a wide variety of household products. In 2011, the Camden Council database reported 77 sites. Many traders run stalls that have been passed from generation to generation. This is in contrast to the much more recent and considerably more famous Camden markets nearby, which primarily attract tourists and those from other parts of London). Aesthetically Queen's Crescent market is a mixture, with pretty plain white houses sitting side by side with large council estates, some of which sit in beautifully landscaped grounds.
History
Early history (1876–1927)
Market traders moved from Malden Road to Queen’s Crescent in 1876 when electrification works were undertaken on Malden Road to replace the horse-drawn trams. In 1893 there were 44 food stallsand 19 non-food stalls with thirteen of the stalls kept by shopkeepers and the rest belonging to independent traders. From 1867 until 1927, street trading was regulated by the police with no licensing or regulation other than the size and spacing of pitches. Queen’s Crescent is the only one of Camden’s existing street markets to have started during the era of police regulation.
The London County Council Act 1927 replaced police regulation with a new licensing regime administered by metropolitan borough councils. From 1927 to 1965 the market was managed by the Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras. In 1936, whilst calling the market Queen Street, Bendetta describes a weekday market selling hosiery, draper, clothing, and food.
and its area became part of the London Borough of Camden. In 1978 the goods for sale on Queen's Crescent are described as: In 1983 Forshaw reports 80 stalls on Thursdays and Saturdays selling food as well as clothes, leather goods, toys, cosmetics, and haberdashery from West to East as you move along the Market. In the same year, Perlmutter reports a slightly lower number of stalls at 60 to 70 and recommends the market for buying cheap plants. The market was successful enough for the Council to invest in five garages for market barrows as part of a light industrial development at 47 Allcroft Road. In the early twentieth century the land was later sold for redevelopment and became private housing.
The market had been run by Camden Council until 2013, when it was transferred to Queen's Crescent Community Association, a not-for-profit charity. In 2015 there were disagreements over the cost of rubbish removal, cleaning and repairs, leaving the QCCA with what it called impossible bills; after negotiations collapsed, the QCCA handed back the market's management to the council. the future of the market was in doubt, with comments that the council had "condemned Queen's Crescent Market to a lingering death". Traders, and customers, were abandoning the market.
In May 2016 the market continued, but was much reduced, with traders reduced from 50 a few years earlier to 22. The decline has been blamed on higher charges by the council. The Greater London Authority has a Good Growth Fund which provides grants that have to be spent on infrastructure schemes by 2021. Camden Council were awarded £1.1 million in 2018 to reinvigorate Queen's Crescent, including the market, with high street improvement works. The award requires that local people must be involved in the regeneration plans. Members of Reclaim Queen’s Crescent, a group campaigning to improve the market and other neighbourhood services said "there is some wariness about how much we will be listened to after our experience with the market".
