Let’s get Oxford Street over in one sentence. There. I’ll also breeze past the leviathan Westfield shopping centres at Shepherd’s Bush and Stratford. The canny London shopper avoids such noisy, crowded places in favour of somewhere more individual. Those seeking high-end fashions and designer clothing have picked up the wrong book. I’m afraid I know next to nothing about such vendors, other than that they tend to cluster around Mayfair, St James’s and certain chichi parts of Marylebone and Knightsbridge. Besides, if you’re after a £20,000 Fabergé egg, you’ve probably got your own personal shopper to assist you anyway. As elsewhere, there are thousands of potential entries in this list, but you’re going to get my own idiosyncratic guide to some of the capital’s most memorable shops.
London Silver Vaults
53–64 Chancery Lane, WC2A 1QS (Chancery Lane)
One pricey place that does deserve a peek is the London Silver Vaults. This is the weirdest shopping mall you’ve ever been to. It’s buried a couple of storeys underground in old Victorian safe deposit vaults, and contains 25 shops, nearly all dedicated to silverware. You don’t have to be any kind of expert, or even part with any money to explore this lustrous labyrinth – just walk in, have a look around, and chat to the friendly shopkeepers. It’s not all priceless Georgian tableware either: you can pick up a small silver trinket, perhaps a christening spoon or napkin holder, for as little as £20. A couple of the shops also trade in vintage jewellery, offering something a bit different to nearby Hatton Garden.
Cybercandy
3 Garrick Street, WC2E 9BF (Leicester Square)
This place is your new best friend. If you’re ever stuck for a Secret Santa present, need a small, fun gift for a friend, homesick expat, or just fancy an unusual treat, head along to this novelty sweet shop. Cybercandy stocks chocolate and candy from around the world. Want to try Japanese versions of British mainstays? You got it. Are you a fan of that hideous sick-flavoured chocolate that Americans seem to love? It’s there. Want to know what custard-and-fish-finger chocolate tastes like? (hint: not all that impressive). You’ll find it. Prices are a little higher than in regular shops, to cover import duties, but you can pick up a novelty treat for about £1. Branches can be found in Covent Garden and Angel.
Persepolis
28–30 Peckham High Street, SE15 5DT (Peckham Rye)
A. Gold
42 Brushfield Street, E1 6AG (Liverpool Street)
Strolling down Peckham High Street it’s impossible to miss the luminous yellow hues of Persepolis, a playful cornershop that specialises in Middle Eastern ingredients. It’s equally impossible to miss the bright red shock of hair sported by the shop’s proprietor Sally Butcher. The shop is annotated with delightful hand-written notes, to help newcomers get their heads around her stock. The tiny space occasionally doubles as an event venue, welcoming in punters for poetry nights or book readings. Sally’s also written a handful of well-received cookery books, including a vegetarian guide to Middle Eastern cuisine. Meanwhile, A. Gold in Spitalfields is a delight for those seeking traditional British foods. Pick up a bottle of Henderson’s Relish for the Northerner in your life; try a jar of honey made by King’s Cross bees, or a tot of rum distilled in Walthamstow. They also dish out sandwiches at lunch, and irresistible Scotch eggs.
Arty Globe
Unit 15, Greenwich Market, SE10 9HZ (Cutty Sark DLR)
The fun-sized Greenwich Market is always a joy to wander around, but the chief highlight has to be Arty Globe. This small shop to the southern end of the square showcases the handiwork of Hartwig Braun. His immediately recognisable designs all include colourful maps or panoramas of famous cities – London, more often than not. Prints of his hand-drawn creations are tempting enough, but you can also pick up scarves, jigsaws, T-shirts and other collectables that make for novel gifts.
Copperfield’s Books
37 Hartfield Road, SW19 3SG
(Wimbledon)
Skoob Books
Unit 66, Brunswick Shopping Centre, WC1N 1AE
(Russell Square)
Peter Harrington
100 Fulham Road, SW3 6HS
(South Kensington)
Oxfam
91 Marylebone High Street, W1U 4RB
(Baker Street)
Despite the rise of online alternatives and chain stores, the small, independent bookshop remains a cherished part of the London streetscape. The most fun can be had in second-hand shops, where you’re always likely to stumble across long-out-of-print volumes that you never knew you needed. Copperfield’s Books in Wimbledon is an absolute gem. Its shelves and tables are filled beyond capacity in a ramshackle, impossibly random jumble. Teetering piles of books hold up other teetering piles of books, to the point where you feel like you’re playing a potentially bruising game of Jenga whenever you withdraw a volume. This is how all bookshops should be. The subterranean Skoob (that’s ‘books’ backwards) in the Brunswick Centre is another favourite. This cavernous collection is bigger than it looks, and has a particularly fine section on London books. Charing Cross Road is the long-acknowledged place to go for antiquarian volumes, as immortalised in the delightful memoir/novel 84 Charing Cross Road. Any of the surviving shops down there is worth a visit, as are the vendors of nearby Cecil Court, although prices can be off-putting for non-collectors. Those seeking first editions might try Peter Harrington, in Fulham and Mayfair. Although this, too, can be pricey, you can find some incredible stuff. I was once shown a first edition, author-annotated copy of Francis Grose’s 1785 edition of his Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. I can now tell you the difference between a ’burning shame’ and a ‘flogging cully’, though not in a family volume such as this. Finally, the best charity bookshop in London, for my money, is the nourishingly stocked Oxfam on Marylebone High Street. It might not be as decadent as the nearby Daunt Books, but its range is impressive, cheaper and helps a good cause with sales.
International Magic Shop
89 Clerkenwell Road, EC1R 5BX (Farringdon)
London was a world centre of magic long before the Harry Potter novels. The Magic Circle, an organisation promoting the art of magic, was founded here in 1905, and still occupies a building near Euston. A more public venue has long commanded the corner of Clerkenwell Road and Leather Lane, in the guise of the International Magic Shop. It’s been selling card tricks, hats from which to extract rabbits, wands and other appurtenances of the conjurer for half a century, with origins around the corner in the long-defunct Gamages department store. Wander in and learn how to levitate a cup or thrust a cigarette through a coin.
Boxpark
2 Bethnal Green Road, E1 6GY (Shoreditch High Street)
One of London’s unique shopping experiences can be had at Shoreditch’s Boxpark. This miniature shopping mall has been constructed out of shipping containers, giving each business a narrow floorspace. The idea is to provide small, up-and-coming shops a chance to vend in a new location for lower rent. A few major brands like Nike have crept in of late, but the place still has an experimental feel. The lower row is mostly given to designer clothes and accessories, and it’s a good place to pick up distinctive trainers, shades, headphones or handbags. Upstairs is the food deck, where you can find everything from Korean to posh fish and chips. Croydon is set to get its own Boxpark any time soon.
There was once a time when only hairdressers felt the need to enliven their trading names with a bit of wordplay: A Cut Above, A Snip at the Price, and North Finchley’s double-punning Hair-O-Dyenamix might raise a chuckle. Nowadays, you can play a bountiful pun-hunting game on the high street. Eateries like Nincomsoup (Old Street), Fishcotheque (Waterloo) and Rock and Sole Plaice (Covent Garden) are perhaps the most numerous contingent, but look out, too, for the following ten shops:
Amazing Grates
fireplace specialists, 61–63 High Road, N2 8AB (East Finchley)
Floors For Thought
carpet shop, 103–105 Battersea Rise, SW11 1HW
(Clapham Junction)
Frame Set & Match
picture framers, 41 Endell Street, WC2H 9BA (Covent Garden)
Frockney Rebel Vintage
vintage clothes shop, 49 Mowlem Street, E2 9HE (Cambridge Heath)
Get Stuffed
taxidermist, 105 Essex Road, N1 2SL (Essex Road)
Philglas & Swiggot
wine merchants, 64 Hill Rise, TW10 6UB (Richmond)
Planet of the Grapes
another wine merchants, 9 New Oxford Street, WC1A 1BA (Holborn)
R. Soles
shoe shop, 109A King’s Road, SW3 4PA (Sloane Square)
opticians, 1 Shorts Gardens, WC2H 9AT
(Covent Garden)
Turn ’em Clean
launderette, 11 Bedford Corner, W4 1LS
(Turnham Green)
Sadly, Stoke Newington’s Sellfridges, which sold fridges and was not to be confused with the more famous department store, has now closed down.
Now long gone, the oddest shop I ever encountered revelled under the name of Shoot The Aged a ‘Non-charitable, profit-making shop’ that stocked second-hand furniture on the Lee-Blackheath borders. It was last glimpsed around the turn of the century, but has now disappeared without trace. I can’t imagine why.
