Check out the Waterloo Bridge Book Market aka South Bank Book Market

Last updated on 19 March 2025

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The Waterloo Bridge Book Market is a must-visit

Officially called the South Bank Book Market, the Waterloo Bridge book market is a wonderful way to spend your morning (or afternoon!). If you’re a book-lover visiting London, then be sure to make your way to the South Bank to check out the books!

When I met up with Erin from e-elise etc in London, we went to the Aquarium, but she also suggested we have a look at the Waterloo Bridge Book Market.

‘There’s a book market?!’ I thought (and said). Yup! Under Waterloo Bridge on the South Bank, they had all these rows of tables with hundreds of second-hand books on them, ranging from fantasy and sci-fi, to cookbooks, to autobiographies, to David Attenborough books (there were quite a few of those!), and even old maps of various countries around the world.

According to the Southbank website, they are there rain or shine, no matter the season…and boy did it rain while we were there! It was actually perfect timing; we were walking from the Aquarium, which was along the river a bit, and just as we reached the book market, undercover, it started bucketing down. They even had to put a tarpaulin over one of the end tables so all the books didn’t get wet.

July 2023 saw the book market’s 40th anniversary which is an incredible feat, considering the book stall holders in the 80s thought it was going to be a temporary thing. I’m definitely pleased it wasn’t temporary! And I’m sure that’s the case for many other visitors over the years, too.

The books that you spot along the numerous tables and stalls are vast in their variety. So many different genres are represented across the stalls, and I even discovered this book on New Zealand in Watercolours. What is this book doing just sitting on a table under a bridge in London? It’s from the 70’s, and even has a watercolour painting of my home town! Yes, I bought it.

And then we found something that was rather amusing: an entire box of Twilight Saga books. An entire box. You could grab the whole Saga, except for number 4, each for only £2.50. Hilarious, but brilliant.

 

So, if you’re ever in London and need something to do, do go over the river and check out the Waterloo Bridge Book Market on the South Bank It’s really neat, and you could spend a lot of time just browsing the tables. I will definitely be checking this out again in the future. Thank you, Erin, for suggesting we go and have a look! Great idea.