Frugal London shopping: A quirky collection of small shops

One of London’s most popular shopping streets is barely known to tourists.

This is Northcote Road, a mile-long collection of “quirky small shops” in southwest London’s borough of Wandsworth, said by a BBC listener survey to be London’s “second favorite shopping street.” Just a few hours of shopping here is an opportunity to see how younger, upper middle class Londoners shop — and, perhaps, to pick up a frugal souvenir or two.

What’s on offer? A three-hour stroll will bring you to all things for children and their parents, bath oils for the hungover, near-pristine vinyl records, a curative for hay fever, and a respite on the steps of a baptist church.

Midway, you’ll want to break for a frugal lunch opportunity at what TimeOut London describes as “one of London’s favorite food destinations.”

And, if you don’t mind an early start, there’s time in this theme day for at least two other shopping opportunities — maybe three.

That early start — say at 7 a.m. — takes you to the Covent Garden Market, famously not in Covent Garden. It, too, is in Wandsworth, just minutes from Northcote Road, having moved from central London a decade ago.

Covent Garden Market is the largest wholesale market in the U.K. Its 200 vendors, the market reports, supply 40 percent of the fresh fruit and vegetables eaten outside the home in London and 75 percent of London’s florists.

The market is busiest between 3 and 6 a.m., but there’s still stuff to see at 7. Think of what you’re likely to see in a typical florist shop: cut flowers in vases, potted plants, a shrub or two, some displays. Multiply by a thousand and that’s what greets you here.

Though a wholesale market, retail shoppers are welcome. Indeed, by 7 a.m. that’s mostly who is buying.

“By 9, it’s dead,” said a worker on a smoke break.

Then, it’s off to Northcote Road, just as the shopkeepers are opening for the day. Out of Clapham Junction train station, walk down St. John’s Hill Road.  Cross Battersea Rise and you’re on Northcote Road.

You see young, active, healthy people: runners, cyclists – some with dogs on leashes, a man carrying a cricket bat, a woman with a squash racket. You hear many voices: English, Italian, Arabic, Hindi.

Most striking to me are the number of young mothers and fathers with their young children, some in strollers, others walking, others on and off their scooters. Many of the women are pregnant.

The area around Northcote Road, in fact, is known as “Nappy Valley,” so named for the number of young families with children. As journalist Melissa York explained to me, these young families were drawn to the area by affordable housing, good primary schools and “lots of green space for the little ones to play around in.”

Savvy retailers followed. I overheard a young Italian couple inquiring at the Baby Room Nanny Agency. They were looking for a nanny for their two children from noon to 8 p.m. daily. A sign in the window of QT Toys promises a “Custom Lego logo mosaic, 700 pieces designed by Adam Mullins.” At Pintus, a child-friendly coffee shop, a sign reads: “During crowded times, you are kindly asked to park the buggies in the garden. We can provide you with high chairs instead.” The cake shop Biscuiteers promotes children parties. Fun Learning offers free face painting, Playfoam and Zoob classes. Merino Kids offers fine-wool fashions for children. Nautical-theme fashions are at Le Petit Bateau.

All interesting to visit. None frugal to buy.

Several restaurants on Northcote Road are good and frugal. Bill’s, a tablecloth brasserie with seating inside and out,  offers three courses for $16. The organic, sourdough, pizza maker Franco Manca offers pies for as little as $7. The tapas bar  Rosita & Sherry offers three small plates for $15.

I skipped the restaurants in favor of a “tasting-menu” approach. I started in a retail cheese shop, Hamish Johnston, collecting free samples of artisan cheeses, charcuterie and smoked salmon — a bite or two of each in folded, white-paper cups. Outside at a street stall, I bought $2 worth of olives at Les Oliveries, where I counted 27 olive preparations. I added a petite baguette from another street stall, Sebastian Vince’s Breadstall, $1.50. Dessert was three, free samples of English honey from the nearby Hive Honey Shop. No table and chairs with this approach, but the steps of Northcote Road Baptist Church were welcoming, and the price was right.

Several must-visits after lunch:

• The strip of retail shops at the intersection of Wakehurst and Northcote Road. Start in Foss Fine Art with its regularly changing solo exhibitions. Recently: Elizabeth Court’s folded paper sculptures. Braemer Antiques supplies Southwest London’s home-restoration market. The indifferent owner doesn’t object to window shoppers routing through the goods. At Verde, search the shelves for Fragile Morning Head Soothing Bath Milk, said by the Telegraph Magazine “to relieve dazed lethargy … after a late night.” But it’s $40 for a 100 ml bottle.
• Trinity Hospice Charity Shop for its fine offering of vinyl record albums, mostly 60s and 70s British rock.  Many clean, scratch free. None more than $3.
• The Hive Honey Shop, where I found my free, after-lunch dessert, is home to James Hamill, London’s 2013 beekeeper of the year. Thirty three honeys are available for tasting. Honey Sticks, a more-natural candy than the ones from manufacturers, are 90 cents. Converse with the informed clerk about claims that honey cures hay fever.

There was time — and energy — left in the day for one more shopping venue — the historic, open air but covered market in Spitalfields. This is in the East London neighborhood of Tower Hamlets, a good distance from Northcote Road, but the train was an opportunity to rest.

“There’s a market in London somewhere every day,” a stall owner told me. The best of them target buyers of vintage and antique collectibles. The Saturday market on Portobello Road in Notting Hill is the best known. Grey’s Antiques off Bond Street is the best quality.

Spitalfields is somewhere in the middle and, I find, the most frugal.

Here are a hundred tables and sellers offering, well, a bit of everything. At casual glance, Spitalfields is a jumble with no apparent organizing principle. Along one row of tables: One selling old family albums. Another offering surreal art. A third selling vintage women’s evening wear.

One dealer I met sold trunks, bar ware, a spinning reel and oil lubricating cans. “Is there a common organizing principle here? ” I asked. “Certainly,” he said, if a bit insulted by the question. He said everything on his table is used in the home, shares a design history, and tells a story.

Another dealer promised working order for an earliest-model Leica camera, the IIIG. “We sell to working photographers,” he said, “not collectors.”

Wonderful, frugal food stalls on the periphery.