The Oldest Markets in Australia: Adelaide Central Market Since 1869 and Still Going Strong

On the morning of 23 January 1869, a group of South Australian produce traders set up shop on a fenced patch of dirt on Grote Street in Adelaide. There were no buildings. There were no sheds. There was a fence, and a few gas lights for the early morning sellers. That patch of dirt became Adelaide Central Market — the oldest continuously operating market on its original site in Australia.

It is, by some margin, older than the Commonwealth of Australia itself. It is older than the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the wheel of the modern bicycle, and the very idea of an Australian dollar. And on a Saturday morning, you can walk through it, buy a sourdough loaf, watch a fishmonger fillet a kingfish, and stand on essentially the same ground that traders have worked for 157 years.

Australia has a handful of markets like this — institutions that have outlived empires, depressions, world wars and supermarkets. This is the story of the country's oldest, and what they look like today.

Adelaide Central Market — opened 1869

Adelaide had been a fledgling colonial city for just 33 years when produce traders, increasingly unhappy with the unsanitary mess of the original East End market site, were moved to a new fenced patch of land approximately two kilometres away on Grote Street. The new "City Market" opened on 23 January 1869.

The opening was not glamorous. There were no permanent structures of any kind. Two large sheds were built within six months and joined by a canopy. A formal opening was held on 22 January 1870. By 1900, demand had outgrown the original sheds, and the market was rebuilt — including the double-storey brick structure that still defines the site today.

The fundamental reason Adelaide Central has survived where so many other 19th-century Australian markets have not is that it never stopped being useful. South Australia's small grocers, immigrant cooks, fishmongers and bakers have always had somewhere to source ingredients you couldn't easily get in a supermarket. Today the market houses more than 70 traders under one roof, and is consistently named one of the world's great food markets.

Queen Victoria Market — opened 1878

The Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne is bigger, louder and more famous than Adelaide Central — but it is younger. Officially opened on 20 March 1878, with a free breakfast for market gardeners hosted by the Mayor of Melbourne, Queen Vic was constructed in stages from the 1860s to consolidate Melbourne's scattered city produce markets into a single site.

The site has a darker history than most visitors realise. Between 1837 and 1854, much of the land where Queen Vic now stands was Melbourne's first official cemetery, holding the remains of an estimated 10,000 early settlers. Most were never moved. When you cross the open carpark on a Sunday, you are walking over them.

“Queen Victoria Market is the largest and most intact 19th-century market in Australia.”

Queen Vic was added to the National Heritage List in 2018 in recognition of both its cemetery history and its status as the country's most complete surviving Victorian-era market. For vintage hunters, the Sunday market is the day of choice — alongside the regular fresh produce, you'll find vintage clothing, leather, antiques, retro homewares and second-hand books.

Paddy's Markets — roots to 1834

Paddy's is the trickiest market on this list to date precisely, because it has changed sites, names and form so many times. The lineage stretches back to 1834, when NSW Governor Richard Bourke moved Sydney's cattle, hay and grain markets to Campbell Street in what we now call Haymarket. The name "Paddy's" stuck (the origin is disputed but most commonly attributed to the predominantly Irish stallholders).

A formal fruit market opened on the current Hay Street site in the early 1890s on the former location of an actual circus. The wholesale operation moved to Flemington in 1975, but the retail Paddy's at Haymarket has continued to trade — a chaotic, multicultural, bargain-heavy beast that anchors the southern end of the Sydney CBD.

Today's Paddy's is more bric-a-brac than antique: cheap fashion, leather, electronics, souvenirs and toys dominate. But for vintage hunters there are still pockets of real interest — and the entire complex was substantially renovated in the 2020s under the new "Hay St Market" branding.

The full list, side by side

Here are the major Australian markets still trading today, sorted by age. Tap any column to re-sort.

Salamanca Market — opened 1971

For most of the 20th century, the warehouses at Salamanca Place in Hobart were a working precinct: jam factories, IXL, grain stores, the smell of seaweed and tar drifting up from Sullivans Cove. By 1970 the warehouses were emptying out and the city was struggling to find a new use for them.

On 6 November 1971, the National Council of Women set up six stalls in the open square outside the warehouses. That was Salamanca Market. From those six stalls grew what is now Tasmania's most-visited tourist attraction: roughly 300 stalls every Saturday, more than one million visitors a year, and an entire generation of Tasmanian artists, woodworkers, jewellers and food producers who got their start there.

Eumundi Markets — opened 1979

The youngest market on the list — and arguably the one with the most dramatic growth story. The first Eumundi Market was held on 24 March 1979, in the local CWA hall in a quiet hinterland town behind Noosa. There were three stalls. Eight visitors. Total takings: thirty dollars.

Today the Original Eumundi Markets run twice a week with over 600 stalls and roughly 1.6 million visitors a year. The market has effectively built the town around it — Eumundi's main street is now a permanent extension of the market, with vintage clothing, retro homewares, hinterland artisans and a steady stream of designers, food trucks and bands. For a market with such modest beginnings, the change is wild.

Why these survived

Australia has had hundreds of markets come and go since 1834. Most lasted a generation, sometimes two. The ones that survived all share a few traits:

1. They own the dirt

Adelaide Central, Queen Vic and Salamanca all sit on city-controlled land that was set aside for market trading early — and never re-zoned. Markets that depended on private leases tended to die when the land became more valuable as something else.

2. They were never just one thing

The surviving markets all sell a mix — produce, clothing, crafts, food. When supermarkets killed off the produce-only markets in the post-war years, the broader markets shifted weight into prepared food, deli, vintage and craft. The narrow ones folded.

3. They became tourism in their own right

Salamanca and Eumundi are extreme cases — markets that are the reason people travel to Hobart and Eumundi respectively. Adelaide Central and Queen Vic are major civic landmarks. Once a market is famous enough to be on a tourism brochure, councils protect it differently.

4. They kept the bones, updated the rest

The Queen Vic carpark and Adelaide Central upper level have been redeveloped multiple times. The trading sheds, by and large, have not. Visitors get a real 19th-century space with 21st-century tenants — which turns out to be exactly what people want.

If you're hunting vintage

Of the markets on this list, the strongest for vintage hunters are Queen Victoria Market (Sunday), Salamanca (Saturday), and Eumundi (Wednesday and Saturday). Adelaide Central is mostly food, but the surrounding Adelaide CBD has a strong cluster of vintage stores within walking distance.

For a more comprehensive list of weekend markets right across Australia — including the smaller, more specialist ones — see our directory of markets in Australia. We also list upcoming market stalls and garage sales for hunters who want to go off the beaten track.

Sources & further reading

• Adelaide Central Market official history (adelaidecentralmarket.com.au).
• SA History Hub, "Central Market" — History Trust of South Australia.
• Queen Victoria Market official history (qvm.com.au) and DCCEEW National Heritage listing.
• Royal Historical Society of Victoria, "Queen Victoria Market: A Series of Constant Challenges".
• Paddy's Markets official history (paddysmarkets.com.au) and the Dictionary of Sydney.
• Salamanca Market 50-year history page (salamancamarket.com.au).
• The Original Eumundi Markets official history (eumundimarkets.com.au).
• Australian Food History Timeline — Adelaide Central Market and Queen Victoria Market opening entries.