Borough · Southwark
The Market Porter
Opens at 6am for market traders and never really slows down after that
- Address9 Stoney Street, Borough Market, London, SE1 9AA
- Phone020 7407 2495
- Websitethemarketporter.co.uk
- OwnershipPart of Market Taverns
About The Market Porter
A Borough Market institution licensed to open from 6am for market workers, run by small operator Market Taverns on a freehold owned by the United St Saviour’s charity.
One of the very few London pubs still licensed for a 6am opening (Monday to Friday, for the benefit of Borough Market's porters and traders), the Market Porter has been the market's unofficial common room for generations. Its exterior — all hanging baskets and dark green paintwork on the corner of Stoney Street — appeared as the entrance to Diagon Alley in the first Harry Potter film, which has made it a pilgrimage stop as much as a local. The pub is run by the small independent operator Market Taverns, with the freehold held by the United St Saviour's charity, a Southwark almshouse charity with deep roots in the borough. Inside it's proper and unpretentious: bare boards, a long bar, and a rotating cask list that regularly runs past a dozen handpumps.
On tap
Extensive cask ale list, often 10+ handpumps of rotating guest beers
Food
Simple pub snacks; no kitchen for full meals
More pubs in Borough
- The George InnLondon's last galleried coaching inn, and the only one still pulling pints
- The Southwark TavernA Victorian-tiled corner boozer with a cellar bar that used to be a debtors’ prison
- The RakeLondon's original craft beer bar, roughly the size of a garden shed