Semaphore Community Market
A weekly Sunday market in a church hall and courtyard on Military Road, in a suburb named after a flagpole.
About this market
The Semaphore Community Market runs every Sunday from 10am to 3pm in the hall and courtyard at St Bede's on Military Road. Weekly is unusual for a community market of this kind in Adelaide, and the ten o'clock start makes it a genuinely different proposition from the dawn produce markets: this is a Sunday outing rather than a shopping run.
Arts, crafts and food a block from the beach
The stall list runs to local arts, crafts and food, with handcrafted goods and live entertainment through the afternoon. Using both the hall and the courtyard gives the market an indoor core plus outdoor overflow, which is why it can run every week of the year rather than pausing through an Adelaide winter. Military Road is the spine of Semaphore, a block back from the esplanade and the jetty, so the market sits in the middle of a suburb that already draws weekend visitors for the beach, the wide main street and the heritage buildings along it. The five hour window is long for a community market and it suits the format, with the crowd building through the middle of the day rather than front-loading at opening.
Market at a glance
A weekly market that opens at ten is really a weekly meeting place with stalls attached, and the courtyard setting reinforces that: people sit down, which is not something the average market layout encourages.
The suburb is named after a signalling device. In 1851 the publican and theatrical entrepreneur George Coppin built a two-storey timber hotel on the corner of The Esplanade and Blackler Street and put up a very high flagpole, used to signal the approach of ships to his White Horse Cellars hotel over at Port Adelaide. The name stuck, and for years the place was just called "the Semaphore". An official government signal station followed in 1856 at The Esplanade and Semaphore Road, recording every vessel in Gulf St Vincent along with water depth, tides and cargo. The Time Ball Tower went up beside it in 1875.
Worth knowing before Sunday
Weekly, 10am to 3pm. Bring cash and a card both, and bags. Parking is along Military Road and the side streets, and the tram from the city runs to Semaphore Road, which makes this an easy market to reach without a car. The beach, the jetty and the Time Ball Tower are all a short walk from the hall, so the market is best treated as the start of an afternoon in Semaphore rather than the whole of one. This is Kaurna country.
Frequently Asked Questions
- When is the Semaphore Community Market on?
- Every Sunday from 10am to 3pm, in the hall and courtyard at St Bede's on Military Road, Semaphore.
- What sort of stalls are there?
- Local arts, crafts and food stalls, with handcrafted goods and live entertainment alongside the food.
- Is it indoors or outdoors?
- Both. The market uses the church hall and the courtyard, so it has an indoor core and spills outside when the weather allows.