Bermondsey in June: Cherry Season Under the Railway Arches

The Northern line deposits you at Bermondsey station and you surface into a neighbourhood that smells, in June, like warmed stone and exhaust and — if you catch the right morning — Morello cherries. The cherry trees lining Bermondsey Street fruit hard in the first half of June, which means the pavement cafés are running cherry compotes and the Saturday market stalls are stacking punnets of them at £3.50 a pop. This is not the Bermondsey of guidebook shorthand. It's a residential grid stitched together by Victorian railway arches that have been repurposed into bakeries, distilleries, and one very good cheese cave. Come on a Friday or Saturday. Sundays are dead.

I first walked this strip in a June downpour four years ago, ducking under arch after arch like some kind of dripping arcade game. The rain stopped, the cherries were in, and I never wrote about anywhere else in south London the same way.

1. Bermondsey Street on a Saturday morning, before 10

Get there early. The antiques market at Bermondsey Square opens at 6 a.m. on Saturdays, and the dealers who actually know what they're selling start packing up by noon. The square sits at the southern end of Bermondsey Street, roughly where it meets Tower Bridge Road. By 9:30 the coffee queue at Fuckoffee — yes, that's the name, 163 Bermondsey Street — is six deep, but they pull shots fast.

The market itself is smaller than people expect. Maybe forty stalls on a good week. Silverware, midcentury ceramics, the odd military badge collection. Prices are negotiable before 8 a.m. and firm after. I watched a woman talk a dealer down from £45 to £30 on a set of Bakelite napkin rings at 7:15; by 10 a.m. he wouldn't budge on a cracked teapot.

Walk north from the square toward the Shard and you'll pass the front of the White Cube gallery at 144–152 Bermondsey Street. Free entry. Open Tuesday–Saturday, 10–6, Sunday 12–6. Whatever show is on, the building itself — a 5,440-square-metre converted warehouse — earns the walk.

2. The arches, and why you should care about cheese

The railway viaduct carrying trains into London Bridge cuts diagonally across the neighbourhood, and the brick arches beneath it have been colonised by food producers. The one that matters most in June is Kappacasein at Arch 12, Bermondsey Trading Estate. Neal's Yard gets all the attention for London cheese, but Kappacasein's raclette — melted over potatoes and cornichons, served from a window on Saturdays from 10 a.m. until they run out, usually by 1 p.m. — is better. £7 a portion last time I checked.

The "Bermondsey Beer Mile" runs roughly along Enid Street and Druid Street under these same arches, about 800 metres end to end. Fourpure, Brew By Numbers, Partizan. Half-pints start around £3. But in June, most of these taprooms are uncomfortably warm by 2 p.m. because the arches trap heat. Go between 11 and 1.

3. Skip Maltby Street Market if it's after noon

I know this is a popular recommendation. Every south London roundup sends you to Maltby Street Market. And from 9 a.m. to about 11:30 it genuinely works — the ropewalk is narrow enough that the stall smells layer on top of each other, and you can eat Taiwanese bao, Ethiopian injera, and a duck confit roll within fifteen metres of each other.

After noon on a Saturday in June, it's a queue simulator. The walkway is maybe three metres wide. Everyone stops to photograph their food. The vendors run out of their best stuff. If you arrive at 12:30 expecting the experience the internet promised, you'll get sardine-packed frustration and a £9 mediocre toastie. Come at 9, eat fast, leave.

4. Cherries, specifically

The Morello cherry trees along Bermondsey Street and in the pocket parks off Grange Road fruit from early to mid-June depending on how warm May was. They're sour cherries — not the kind you eat by the handful. But the cafés on the street know what to do with them. Garrison at 99–101 Bermondsey Street runs a cherry clafoutis in June that I've seen nowhere else in London done as well. It's not on the regular menu; it appears on the specials board, usually Thursday through Saturday, around £8.

The trees themselves are worth looking at, which I realise sounds like something your aunt would say. But a row of dark-fruiting Morellos against yellow London brick, with trains rattling overhead every four minutes — that's a specific kind of beautiful that doesn't need me to oversell it.

Bring a bag if you want to pick the low-hanging fruit in the park behind Tanner Street. People do. Nobody stops them.

5. Where to eat dinner without a reservation system that hates you

Most of London's interesting restaurants now require you to battle a booking system that releases tables at 10 a.m. on a Wednesday six weeks out. Bermondsey has a handful of places where you can just walk in.

Casse-Croûte at 109 Bermondsey Street is the exception — you do need to book, and it's worth the effort. Twelve seats. French bistro menu that changes daily. Mains around £18–£22. They do a duck confit that people get annoyingly evangelical about, and for once the evangelists are right. Call to reserve; the online booking is unreliable.

For walk-ins, try Pizarro at 194 Bermondsey Street. José Pizarro's Spanish small plates, £6–£14 each. The croquetas are consistent. Get a table on the ground floor rather than upstairs — the acoustics upstairs turn conversation into shouting. Kitchen closes at 10:15 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

El Pastor opened a Bermondsey outpost and the consensus is that it's as good as the Coal Drops Yard original. I disagree. The tacos are fine but the salsa verde tastes muted here, like they're making it in larger batches. Go to the original if you want El Pastor.

Stay in London

Top-rated hotels near London

Best locations · Verified reviews · Free cancellation

View deals

Expedia →

6. The Fashion and Textile Museum is better than you think

At 83 Bermondsey Street, this tangerine-and-pink building designed by Ricardo Legorreta is easy to dismiss as a novelty. It's not. The rotating exhibitions are tightly curated and cover ground that the V&A treats as footnotes — Caribbean textile traditions, Japanese denim manufacturing, the economics of 1960s British knitwear. Entry is £12.10 for adults. Open Tuesday–Saturday, 11–6. Closed Sundays and Mondays.

Budget about 90 minutes. The gift shop sells actual fabric and sewing supplies alongside the usual tote bags, which is a rarity for a London museum shop.

7. Walking home along the river at 9 p.m.

June gives you daylight until nearly 9:30 p.m. in London. Use it. From the north end of Bermondsey Street, it's a 12-minute walk to the Thames Path via Tooley Street. Turn left and you're walking west toward Tower Bridge, which at that hour in June is lit gold against a sky that hasn't fully darkened.

The stretch of Thames Path between Shad Thames and Butler's Wharf is 400 metres of converted wharves with the smell of the river coming up over the railing. In June the tide tends to be low in the evenings, exposing the foreshore — grey-brown mud, clay pipe stems, the occasional Victorian bottle. You can't access the foreshore without a permit from the Port of London Authority, but you can see plenty from the path.

Keep walking past the Design Museum at Shad Thames and you'll hit Tower Bridge in another five minutes. Cross it if you want the Circle and District lines from Tower Hill. Or double back to London Bridge station — about 15 minutes on foot — and take the Jubilee line. Last trains run past midnight.

Stay in London

Top-rated hotels near London

Best locations · Verified reviews · Free cancellation

View deals

Expedia →