The Original Penny Bazaar
Widely described as the world's smallest Marks & Spencer, trading since 1895 behind its period shopfront and gilt lettering.
What is said to be the smallest Marks & Spencer in the world is not in a shopping centre or on a high street but in a tiny stall with a period shopfront and gilt lettering inside a covered market in Newcastle, where it has traded as the 'Original Penny Bazaar' since 1895. That one stall sums up Grainger Market: a building that never became a museum of itself, but stayed a working market where locals buy meat, vegetables and fabric much as they did nearly two centuries ago. It opened in October 1835 as part of Richard Grainger's neoclassical rebuilding of the city centre, to a design by John Dobson, and it is now Grade I listed and one of the oldest purpose-built covered markets in Britain. The two halls feel quite different. The eastern one was the meat market, a warren of narrow arcaded alleys; the western one was the vegetable market, whose original timber roof burned in 1901 and was replaced by the steel-and-glass roof that still floods the hall with light. Between them more than a hundred independent traders keep shop, butchers and greengrocers alongside hardware and haberdashery, and in recent years cheap food counters have sprung up among them, making this the most affordable quick lunch in the city centre: pizza by the slice, Asian dumplings, Middle Eastern plates, and a few butchers selling halal meat. A refurbishment costing around nine million pounds began in September 2024, repairing the roof, adding two seating pavilions in the main arcade and installing new toilets, and it was due to finish in early 2026, so expect the place to look cleaner and airier than it did a couple of years ago, with perhaps a stray hoarding still up. It is almost entirely on one level and pushchair-friendly, except in the tighter alleys of the eastern hall at peak lunchtime. A plain verdict is due: this is not a sight to travel for, but a thirty-to-sixty-minute stop to fold into a walk along Grey Street and past Grey's Monument next door, and its value lies in the atmosphere rather than the shopping. Traders keep shop hours, 9am to 5.30pm Monday to Saturday, and the market is shut on Sundays and bank holidays, with occasional extra opening days before Christmas. Midday is the time to come, when every food counter is open; after four the stalls start closing one by one and the halls empty out. Entry is free with no booking, Monument Metro station is two minutes' walk away, and it makes an ideal refuge from Newcastle rain, which does not distinguish between summer and winter.
Widely described as the world's smallest Marks & Spencer, trading since 1895 behind its period shopfront and gilt lettering.
The western hall under the steel-and-glass roof that replaced the timber original after the 1901 fire is the most photogenic corner, best around midday.
Pizza by the slice, Asian dumplings and Middle Eastern plates at prices the surrounding restaurants cannot match, plus a few halal butchers.
Grainger Street, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 5QQ
Just a pass-through. Do not plan a day around it or come from out of town for it; drop in while walking Grey Street or coming out of Monument Metro, and aim for midday so you can eat from the counters as you wander. The one thing to avoid is Sunday, when it is completely shut, and anything after 4pm, when the stalls begin closing.
Reasonably so. It is all on one level and pushchairs move easily through the western hall and the main arcade, though the eastern hall's alleys are narrow and crowded at lunchtime. The two new pavilions give you somewhere to sit, and new toilets were part of the recent refurbishment. As far as we know there is no prayer room inside the market.