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Christmas cheer for shoppers. Late night Christmas shopping at Columbia Road, E2. This Christmas, over forty independent shops on Columbia Road and Ezra Street will be opening for late-night shopping on Wednesday evenings – December 2nd, 9th, 16th and 23rd from 5pm to 9pm. There will be festive fun and food and live music. Christmas Wednesdays are an ideal opportunity to pick-up presents you wouldn’t find on the high street and stock up on some festive cheer. This late-night trading will be in addition to normal Sunday trading (9am to 3pm) that takes place alongside the Flower Market. We are one of the few streets in the country composed entirely of independent shops. Small art galleries sit next to cup cake parlours and vintage clothes stores, while English and Italian delis trade alongside garden and antiques outlets. This eclectic variety of shops is complemented by a wealth of award winning pubs, cafés and restaurants. The shops have a common thread; a love of the flower market and its history, and a refusal to be dictated to by a retail world where a sense of fun has all but gone. Columbia Road is situated in London’s East End. The shops were originally built on a watercress field as a Victorian shopping arcade some 150 years ago. The steel and glass towers of the City are just a stone’s throw away, and form a striking backdrop to the brown brick and slate roofs of this charming street. Columbia Road retains a Dickensian atmosphere with cobbled streets, Victorian street lamps and traditional shop fronts, and the area is often used as a film set. The street is one of London’s last remaining shopping destinations to be wholly made up of independent outlets. Friendly, service-minded shopkeepers sell an unconventional mix of products from English cheeses to hats, garden pots to modernist furniture, and king prawns to Street Art, all alongside a plethora of great pubs and delightful cafés and restaurants. There’s nowhere better to soak up a bit of traditional shopping atmosphere on a Sunday, or on a Wednesday night in the lead-up to Christmas.

Shops open on Christmas Wednesdays include:
Open House Lee’s Seafood The Garden shop Marcos and Trump Fred Bare Supernice Angela Flanders Ben Southgate Wawa Milagros The Royal Oak Nelly Duff Lapin and Me Vintage Heaven Beyond Fabrics	StART SPACE Bob & Blossom Ryantown Far Bahasa Nom Given and Cerise UK Laxiero Warren Evans Beveley Alvarez Nelson's Head Orangerie Campania Lesley Davy Gallery Jessie Chorley and Buddug Humphreys	Glitterati Our House Idonia Van Der Bijl Treacle Two Columbia Road Jones Dairy Flea Pit Elphick's Columbia Road Gallery Degustation Suck and Chew The Powder Room The Future Mapping Company Metropolis Furniture Company

For latest updates check out: columbiaroad.info Tube: Bethnal Green (Central) or Old Street (Northern) Bus: 8, 26, 48, 55 and many others (please see our map) Train: Cambridge Heath Road (National Express/National Rail) or Old Street (First Capital Connect) Other transport information can be found at http://journeyplanner.tfl.gov.uk Directions and parking details on our website Christmas Wednesdays take place on December 2nd, 9th, 16th and 23rd. 5pm to 9pm. If you require any more details, don’t hesitate to contact me, Juliette, on 0207 613 0876 or by email christmas@columbiaroad.info