Battersea

AH Dunn, under Creative Commons by Ewan-M. Click pic for link.

Battersea, home of the power station, the dog home, the flower market… These places aren’t really the Battersea I visited – they’re Nine Elms, so full disclosure, I’ve been to the power station but won’t write about it today. I did have a bit of a look at Battersea fairly recently though – it’s a classic case of gentrification (I cite Tim Butler) and is home to a charming housing estate, built for the working classes by well-meaning Victorians, both subjects I have pored over at length. It’s a textbook gentrified inner suburb, for sure, and vies with Crouch End to be the definition of yummy mummy territory – all artisan bakers, Starbucks and pushchairs – christened Nappy Valley by Will Self. And cheese shops; I’m pretty jealous of the cheese shops actually.

As you’d imagine, this is home to a certain type of charity shop. Northcote Road, the centre of Nappy Valley, is the hub of the inner-suburban leisure mum, and here are the more expensive charity shops: Trinity Hospice and a Fara kids’ shop (of course). There’s not a great deal to them though: some expensive tat, a selection of slightly intellectual books, the odd over-priced secondhand pushchair.

For a wider selection, cross the sweeping bar and cafe route of Battersea Rise to the semi-pedestrianised St John’s Road. Here you’ll find British Heart Foundation, Scope, Cancer Research, Traid and the frankly slightly odd Ace of Clubs, which I’ve never come across before. While none yielded any magnificent bounty, a smattering of objets made it a worthwhile diversion, and with that sort of population, you just never know.

Find: Battersea @ Google Maps
Consume with: plenty of options for frothy coffee or artisan fish.
Visit: if you can sneak into the power station somehow, absolutely do.
Overall rating: three coasters

East Sheen

Untitled, by Edgley Cesar, under Creative Commons. Click pic for link.

East Sheen’s a funny kind of place, really, the sort of location you happen across because you happen to be driving along the South Circular, rather than on purpose. It’s something of an infill town, being recognised formerly as some nowhere in the Brixton Hundred of Surrey, then as the eastern part of Sceon/Sheen (now Richmond), or as being an extension of Mortlake – the shops encroach along Sheen Lane to Mortlake Station even now – and later a constituent of the municipal borough of Barnes. Nevertheless, given its nondescript beginnings, there’s plenty to East Sheen, and it’s almost totally concentrated along the A205.

On a long, stretched out main road like an American edge city, the shops in East Sheen radiate out from the central crossroads with Sheen Lane, where you’ll find Waitrose, and the busiest traffic. There’s little to point to East Sheen as anything other than a charity shop or local amenity destination, as with Richmond, Twickenham and Putney within spitting distance, there’s little requirement for boutiques and extensive chain restaurants. There is, however, charity shops, and they perhaps benefit from the proximity of Richmond and its inhabitants: a mixture of vintage, obscure bric-a-brac and a pretty good overall selection.

Octavia, if I recall correctly, is the first one when approaching from the East, a labyrinthine and somewhat vintage-orientated shop with a distinctive aroma. Though there was a few vaguely interesting, but expensive, knick-knacks, this was sadly lacking in general goodness (a pity, as this is a charity I could get behind – it’s a contemporary extension of the fascinating work of Octavia Hill in nineteenth century London). We also have some nice bric-bracery on the crossroads, in Barnardo’s, Fara (two shirts for me), Cancer Research, Mind and the like. Not many stick out, which is strange because overall I’m left with an overwhelmingly positive impression of the place. Perhaps it’s the proximity of Richmond Park (so close, your rotisserie chicken won’t get cold) or the discovery of not only a wicker linen basket, but tapes of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, and I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue in Princess Alice Hospice. There was also chunky mirror-based indecision in a shop I can’t find listed, but definitely had something to do with missing people.

Sometimes the most fun in researching a location is not the place itself, but the people (of course it is! I’m a human geography student, what do you expect?), particularly those considered ‘notable’ by the hive mind of Wikipedia. Obviously, a pinch of salt is occasionally required (although Jacques Ranciere has a thing or two to say about the overthrow of expertism by collective knowledge), but there’s a full-on slew of names associated with East Sheen, so I leave you with the highlights:

Tim Berners-Lee Marc Bolan The Moody Blues Rudolph Nureyev Omid Djalili Debbie Harry Tim Henman Andrew Marr Davina McCall Trevor McDonald Roy Kinnear Rob Brydon Phillip Glenister Daniel Craig. Nice.

Find: East Sheen @ Google Maps
Consume with: As mentioned, a cooked chicken and fresh bread dinner from Waitrose comes highly recommended. There’s a snack/coffee point at Pembroke Lodge too.
Visit: Richmond Park, of course.
Overall rating: three audiobooks

Pimlico

columns, under creative commons from andrewpaulcarr's photostream

It is not enough for a man to disapprove of Pimlico: in that case he will merely cut his throat or move to Chelsea. Nor, certainly, is it enough for a man to approve of Pimlico: for then it will remain Pimlico, which would be awful. The only way out of it seems to be for somebody to love Pimlico: to love it with a transcendental tie and without any earthly reason.
GK Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Pimlico today has something of faded gentility about it. The broad streets are lined with magnificent Regency stucco, yet a closer examination reveals that there’s more than a touch of mutton dressed as lamb about it. Pimlico, as GK suggests, is not Chelsea; nor is it somewhere one would love for earthly reasons. Yet this slightly shabby, fusty uncle of a neighbourhood seems to harbour much affection among bargain-hunters, and more than once has been recommended to me for its charity shops. I have to say, I don’t really see the appeal.

The land which now houses Pimlico was, until the early nineteenth-century, a marshy emptiness. That was, until Cubitt got his hands on the development contract and the bogs were filled in by dirt from the recently excavated St Katherine’s Docks, and the grid of townhouses were constructed. Nash‘s Buckingham Palace was completed nearby, as were the Houses of Parliament and Victoria station, and the locale became quite the address. But despite its pretensions to nobility, Pimlico has had a checkered history – by the late 1800’s when Rev Gerald Olivier (with his son Laurence) moved to the area, they were entering, essentially, a slum. Today, Pimlico is a very central address, and has house prices to match – yet even the swankiest look out on a mixture of glorious Georgian townhouses (many housing slightly seedy-looking hotels) and Westminster LHA housing; boutiques and market stalls; gastronomic cheese emporia, and burger vans.

Central London has few treats for the charity shop enthusiast (see, just a couple of posts from town, although Marylebone is still to be reviewed), but here is a genuine cluster of six. They’re not all good; they’re mostly a bit weird truth be told, but a haul nonetheless. Two FARA shops are notable: the first, on Tachbrook St is a children’s specialist (a good selection of buggies particularly, but the clothes were too expensive compared to other specialist shops like Shooting Stars in Whitton); the second is the most boutique-y charity shop I ever did see. Black walls and shocking pink trim, some very suave looking assistants and some pretty chilled dance music on the stereo. But initial appearances are deceptive: the clothes were really very little different to any other charity shop, the music turned out to be ear-clutching smooth-boy of UK garage, Craig David, and the downstairs part of the shop was decorated in, well, tatty paint and bookshelves.

There’s also a pretty standard Oxfam and Sue Ryder, not much to write home about there, and the most charity shop-ish of all these, Trinity Hospice. This was actually the most fruitful, as although it was too tightly packed to be comfortable, and almost derelict in its decoration, I came away with two books, the only purchases I made that afternoon.

Perhaps the most community-specific shops were CrusAID and Hospices of Hope. The latter was, though on the fashionable side again, perhaps the most uncomfortable charity shop I’ve been in. Here are not the social grannies of Epping or the chirpy hippies of Totnes – here you’re stared at on entry and throughout your visit, as you peruse far too many new items, and too few bargains. The former shop was more interesting, and certainly more cheerful, mostly because of the bawdy cashier berating the world about its football predilections. This is a stylish charity shop, though: candles burn; LPs play like its a DJ bar; the book snug is named The Library; the clothes are vintage and attractively laid out; and though the bargains are few, there’s enough odd surprises (earmuff/headphones were fun) to make it worthwhile.

I don’t really recommend this part of town, unfortunately. I understand why it’s been recommended to me, and I give a half-decent rating for the sheer quantity of shops, but I am a man of simple tastes and have never been able to describe myself as fashionable, so I feel I stick out like a sore thumb in this sort of arena. More for me the tatty high streets of Essex or the rolling identikits of London suburbia. I can’t cope with the trendy.

Find: Pimlico @ Google Maps
Consume with: There’s several gastro affairs, including Gastronomica, where “cheese never sleeps”. We went to Nero. 
Visit: well you’re in the heart of Westminster, take your pick.
Overall rating: three over-priced candles

Surbiton

Surbiton Station, by Martin McDonald under Creative Commons. Click pic for link.

The name ‘Surbiton’ might have been created especially for the massive boom in suburbanisation of the 1930s, as the suited hordes poured out of inner London into freshly-minted speculatively-built housing with matching lawns, drives and decorations on the front door. The area has a unique and instantly recognisable place in British culture as the home of such suburbia, primarily because of The Good Life (probably more specifically, Felicity Kendal’s bottom) but also Stella Street, Monty Python and the like.

It would be easy to presume that Surbiton sprung entirely in this era: Paul Barker describes the process in Kenton of housing, followed by transportation, followed by commerce in the 1930s. In fact, records of Surbiton as a community in its own right start c.1178, although this was basically a farm which happened to become the location of an early phase of railway expansion, when the mainline was rejected from Kingston and a site had to be found further south. Today’s station is very much not from 1838, but is a monument to the art deco stylings of the 30’s, even more so than Charles Holden’s epic Piccadilly line stations, like Arnos Grove. After the advent of the railway, the community found itself growing, and received visitors and residents of the stature of Thomas Hardy, Enid Blyton, John Everett Millais and William Holman Hunt.

Today’s Surbiton, the gateway to Esher, is the archetype of London suburbia. An entirely different ethnic composition than I am used to, a community based entirely around its proximity to London, and a high street dominated by chain stores. Nevertheless, there’s good charity shopping to be had in Surbiton, even late in the afternoon on a cold February Saturday. British Heart Foundation was as overly-displayed (and thus overly-crowded) as any, and Princess Alice Hospice and Oxfam were closed (earlier than stated, in the latter case, so watch out for that…). There is also, Google Maps informed us later, a Fircroft Trust shop tucked away on St Andrew’s Road – I can’t comment on that, but it is there on the Trust’s website.

That leaves a good but unmemorable Cancer Research and next door, an excellent Fara. The latter are consistently good charity shops in this part of the world (cf. Whitton and Richmond, particularly), and this was no exception: a basement level contains a good spread of menswear and a sizeable wedding dress section, while the upstairs has an entire section devoted to party dresses. It does what it says on the tin: it’s actual grown-up party dresses, of the like you’ll more often see on a Disney princess or a little girl. I managed to resist, although I did break my fiction embargo with Gutierrez’s Dirty Havana Trilogy.

The best in Surbiton was probably The Children’s Society. A somewhat camp extravaganza of feather boas and masquerade masks awaits you in the window, alongside antique sewing machines and a wicker elephant, and these are complemented inside by some, well, fabulous Tiffany-esque lamps. Some good stuff to be found here.

Surbiton’s a bit of a cliche to most, but it’s actually a very pleasant stop-over if you’re in the general Kingston direction, and I heartily recommend you to visit.

Find: Surbiton @ Google Maps
Consume with: a quick stop in the area meant that only Caffe Nero was sampled… 
Visit: you’re in the vicinity of the Western-most point of South London’s great swathe of green, running from Bushy Park, through nearby Richmond Park and Wimbledon Common, right through to Blackheath in the East. Richmond is definitely worth a visit, larger than Hampstead Heath and entirely enclosed by wall.
Overall rating: four feather boas

Ealing

Ealing Common station interior, under Creative Commons from Ewan-M’s photostream. Click pic for link.

Ealing is, compared to West Ealing, somewhat glitzy. It’s the glamour girl of the eponymous borough, the headliner, the main act. Its shops are big, its bakers are fancy, its transport connections are good to very good, its houses are beautiful, its common is lovely and circus-friendly.

As such, it puts its aforementioned neighbour in perspective – one end of the street, a dusty, forlorn kind of a nowhere, the other end bombastic, full, and extravagantly better. Or is it? Despite the presence of four charity shops, there’s really little purpose in visiting Ealing. The Broadway is full of chain stores and chain cafes, a shopping centre here, a Costa there, you know the sort. There’s little to give the place any real character or individuality.

And so I don’t rate it that much, even for charity shopping. There’s two Oxfam shops here, a Fara and a Cancer Research: it’s worth a stop off maybe, if you’re in the direction, but even for the vaunted Oxfam book shop, you can do better. Now, about the bookshop. There’s a legend of a Audio and Music Oxfam in the region, and so off we went looking for it, but any questions we asked the denizens of the region seemed to bounce off empty synapses. Having referred to Google Maps upon return, we deduce that the bookshop, featuring no music at all, was the fabled store in question, so that one’s ticked off.

Ah well. It’s not bad, but it’s not so great either.

Find: Ealing on Google Maps
Transport: Ealing Broadway: Piccadilly Line
Consume with: any number of chain coffees
Visit: Gunnersbury Park always looks nice, and comes with the added bonus of having a really good wall.
Overall rating: two hot pants

Twickenham

Eel Pie, by Kake Pugh (under creative commons)

Whitton

Whitton High Street, Creative Commons from satguru’s photostream

Richmond-upon-Thames

Richmond Bridge, by Jim Linwood

Richmond is money. We’re not quite talking money in the Swingers sense, we’re talking old money: big houses, winding streets, humungous walled parks, boutique charity shops, the lot. This is good, and makes for extensive bargain-hunting potential. Money, so they say, is the root of all evil today, and though they’re giving none away (especially Oxfam…), still we have goodies.

First stop for us is Marie Curie, on Sheen Road. Here I was able to add to my already extensive secondhand jacket collection with a nice tweed Oscar Jacobson number (a gentleman should have at least a jacket for every day of the week, according to Etiquette For Men, purchased not a day ago from Enfield Town), and nearly spent a fractional amount on a ninety quid pair of jeans – alas, my waist did not fit the trousers. I blame the trousers. A nice compact shop, with some artwork for sale and a completely barking salesman, a la Cancer Reseach in Muswell Hill.

Also grouped around the central sections of George Street are a decent Oxfam, and a new one on me, Octavia – a boutique-y kind of arrangement, with some funny looking gift items on sale, and a sprawling collection of classic Britpop. While you’re this side of the river, you can check out the big shops – there’s a John Lewis up here, as well as Marks and Waterstones etc. It’s always ridiculously busy, but fairly pleasant all the same – you can find some treasures tucked off the side. I recommend W & A Houben Booksellers and the cute paper/stationery shop on Sheen Street.

Head over now to the small but packed Cancer Research on the corner of Water Lane, then head up the hill and down to the river and over the bridge for the full Richmond experience. It’s genteel, it’s classy and fancy, and you could see yourself in the countryside for the loveliness of the river view. On the other side you’ll find a further collection of charity shops, including a pretty decent Fara; a stuffed-with-tat Princess Alice Hospice; and a Notting Hill Trust store.

A goodly collection you’ll no doubt agree, and a perfectly lovely way to spend an autumn afternoon. Don’t forget to head off to Richmond Park for some deer spotting – make your way there up Friars Stile Road and you’ll be rewarded with one of the finest views in the whole city.

Find: Richmond @ Google Maps
Transport: Richmond station – District line and London Overground
Consume with: a nice cup of coffee from the tellingly-named Cafe Rich, or the Cedar.
Visit: Richmond Park – it has walls, deer and bracken by the country mile, what more could you wish for?
Overall rating: four chelsea boots