Lane Cove Makers Market

The Lane Cove Makers Market runs on the third Sunday of the month, 9am to 3pm, spreading across Lane Cove Plaza and the adjoining Canopy. It is a handmade market in the strict sense: the ceramics, jewellery, candles, clothing, textiles, plants and small-batch gourmet food on the tables are made in Australia by the people selling them, which is a narrower rule than most Sydney markets apply.

Six hours is a long day for a market this size

Most monthly markets on the north shore are finished by early afternoon. This one trades until 3pm, which changes how people use it: it absorbs a Sunday lunch rather than competing with one, helped by the restaurants ringing the plaza. Buskers are part of the draw too, and the market has a reputation for attracting some of the better street musicians working in Sydney. The market skips January, which is the only month it does not run.

The two halves of the venue give the market its shape. Lane Cove Plaza is the older pedestrian heart of the village, while The Canopy next to it is a recent piece of civic engineering, and stalls run through both. The operator, The Beaches Market, also runs a market at Palm Beach on the fourth Sunday, so the two sit a week apart on the calendar.

Before you visit

Third Sunday, 9am to 3pm, and no market in January. Parking is the easy part here, unusually for Sydney, because the car park the market sits above holds around 500 cars and is entered from Rosenthal Avenue. Lane Cove is also well served by buses from the city and Chatswood. Because stallholders make what they sell, stock is genuinely limited and the better-known makers sell out, so morning is the time to come if there is something specific you want. Bring a card as well as cash, since makers at this end of the market almost all take payments electronically. This is Cammeraygal country.