The Barras Market has been a bustling hub in the east end of Glasgow for nearly 100 years as shoppers flood in every weekend to snap up bargains.

From carpets to clothes and food to footballs, nearly everything is available among the traders and stalls in this shopping institution.

The market as it is today began in the years following the First World War, when the original 'Barras queen', Maggie McIver, would sell her wares from a wheelbarrow, or 'barra'.

She lost her husband, James, to malaria in 1930 but ran the Barras as a single mother with nine children.

By 1931, the market was completely enclosed, which allowed Ms McIver to build a ballroom on a new second floor.

It opened on Christmas Eve of 1934 with a Barras night out, which became a yearly romantic tradition for traders and locals.

The success of the Barras continued and business flourished as it firmly established itself at the centre of east end culture.

The death of founder Maggie McIver in 1958, by then a millionaire, was quickly followed by a fire which gutted the ballroom.

It was painstakingly rebuilt as a tribute to her and reopened in 1960. The ballroom has since become hugely popular gig venue, hosting some of Scotland's most memorable shows and renowned across the globe for its electric atmosphere and unusual sprung dance floor.

Many regard the 1950s as the market's heyday, as Glaswegians religiously stopped in to snap up the bargains from a wide variety of stock that traders sold from their covered stalls.

The Barras has become as famous for its characters as its clothes, with some traders selling products with a questionable legal status and playing a decades-long game of cat and mouse with police officers looking to crack down on the counterfeit labels and knock-off goods sold from some the market's corners.

A three-year operation recently seized £30m of copyright-infringing goods and snared 100 people allegedly involved in the black market.

Stalls were closed down by police and new above-board businesses are being encouraged to set up.

In recent years there has been a decline in business for business owners as customers desert traditional markets for the value and convenience of online shopping and out-of-town superstores.

Efforts have been made to diversify and regenerate the area, with Glasgow City Council pouring cash into a number of projects aimed at bringing the market into the modern era.

Critics claim the plan with lead to gentrification of the Barras and the identity of the market being diminished but as the stallholders and spirit remain, it continues to have an important place in Glasgow today.