A street market runs beneath a brick railway viaduct on the high street, and a hidden garage on Arklow Road held Bond's Aston Martin in Skyfall.
What Deptford looks like
runs Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, trestle tables and stalls set along the pavement from the station down past Douglas Way to the Giffin Street corner. Fruit and vegetables fill one stretch, general goods and antiques further along, with mattresses and clothes rails set out between the shopfronts on a market day.
A brick railway viaduct crosses the high street just south of the station, carried on brick arches built between 1834 and 1836. The rebuilt station sits inside the arches, a glass entrance set into the brick. One arch nearby now holds a bar. A red telephone box still stands on the pavement below the bridge.
Along the high street itself, low brick and rendered shopfronts run two and three storeys, most with flats above. A corner building near the bridge, once a pub with a domed turret, now trades as a restaurant. Further down, a low building that was once a government job centre now trades as the bar Jam Circus.
, the former Royal Dockyard site, sits north of the market. Dark industrial sheds still line its riverbank, the Grade II listed Olympia Warehouse among them, with new residential towers close behind.
is a stone church with a columned portico and a tall spire, partway along the high street. Its tower rises above the market stalls. stands nearby on Deptford Green, its own stone tower behind a low wall and a line of trees.
Shot in Deptford
Deptford High Street has played itself in several productions. The Netflix series Supacell filmed here, and the ITVX series You & Me and Sky Max's A Town Called Malice both used the street too. Skyfall used a garage on nearby Arklow Road for Bond's hidden Aston Martin, and the 1980 film Babylon shot the corner at the railway bridge.
Babylon, 1980
In the 1980 film Babylon, Blue walks past the Mechanics Arms on the pub's corner opposite Deptford station in the early hours before police stop and beat him. The building now trades as the restaurant Tomi's Kitchen, the same domed turret and brick facade still standing.
Skyfall, 2012
Skyfall used a hidden garage under the railway arches on Arklow Road, just south of Childers Street. Bond keeps a vintage Aston Martin DB5 there. A later car chase in the same film runs along Lewisham Way onto New Cross Road, in New Cross rather than Deptford.
Supacell, 2024
Deptford High Street
The Netflix series Supacell filmed on Deptford High Street, the first production to use Douglas Way Market as a unit base. Businesses on Deptford Market Yard, in the plaza outside the station, served as a holding area for cast and crew.
What Deptford can double for
Beresford Square in Woolwich, London, United Kingdom
Beresford Square keeps a pedestrianised market trading in front of a Grade II listed 1828 gatehouse, the last remnant of the old Royal Arsenal entrance, the same pairing of an outdoor market against a former royal ordnance yard that Deptford has. New housing now stands on the Royal Arsenal's own riverside ground, built in stages, the same kind of post industrial waterfront redevelopment Convoys Wharf is going through. Beresford Square's surrounding buildings run taller and more uniform than Deptford High Street's mixed shopfronts, so a tight frame on the market stalls and the gatehouse holds the match better than a wide shot. Try searching Royal Arsenal gatehouse market now.
Shepherd's Bush Market in Shepherd's Bush, London, United Kingdom
Shepherd's Bush Market has run stalls and independent shopfronts alongside a railway viaduct since about 1914, the same closeness between market trade and viaduct brick that runs under Deptford station. Both markets keep small individually run units rather than one managed food hall. The Hammersmith and City line viaduct runs the full length of Shepherd's Bush Market rather than crossing it once, so holding a stall in frame against brick arches for more than a few seconds shows the difference. Try searching market stalls railway viaduct now.
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