Brixton Market is the reason this walk exists. The covered market on Atlantic Road has been here since the 1930s; Brixton Village inside it has some of the best casual eating in south London. Electric Avenue, immortalised in song, is still a proper street market — vegetables, fabrics, household goods — with the electricity infrastructure that gave it its name visible above.
Brockwell Park is the ending and the reorientation. Up the hill from Herne Hill, past the walled garden and the manor house, to the lido in the park's lower section. In summer the lido is full; in April, the die-hards who swim year-round are often the only ones there. Either way, the park is quieter than Clapham and the view north over London is excellent.
