London’s street art scene has gone from strength to strength over the years. There’s no better place to see it than hip east London. I’ve even written a free street art tour you can take.
22. Street Art in Shoreditch
Shoreditch is one of the best places to see street art in London. The areas around Shoreditch High Street and Redchurch Street are some of my favorites, but you can’t go wrong in this area.
23. Street Art in Spitalfields
Spitalfields might even have better street art than Shoreditch. Hanbury Street alone has some of the best in the city. It changes all the time, so it’s worth going back to the area around Brick Lane again and again.
I love to walk, and London is the perfect place for it. With so many big attractions and beautiful side streets, exploring on foot is one of the most rewarding free things to do in London.
15. Walk Along the Thames
Walking along the Thames is a great way to get a feel for the city and see some of the most important landmarks.
From the Houses of Parliament to the London Eye and Tower Bridge, there’s no shortage of sights to take in on a stroll along the river.
My favorite stretch of the Thames Path is the one from Hammersmith to Chiswick. I’ve also published a free self-guided Thames walk in London if you want a longer route.
16. Walk Along Regent’s Canal
London also has beautiful canals. It’s worth taking a canal walkthrough Maida Vale, Little Venice, Camden, and King’s Cross to take in the colorful boats and views along the way.
You even get a free glimpse of the animals at the zoo as you go, so it’s another great free thing to do in London.
17. Walk down the King’s Road
Walking down the King’s Road from Sloane Square to Parson’s Green is another great way to spend a morning or afternoon. There’s great window shopping en route, and the colorful side streets are fun to explore.
18. Walk across Millennium Bridge
It’s a short one, but strolling across the Millennium Bridge from Tate Modern to St Paul’s Cathedral is another great walk. It has ideal vantage points of both buildings as you go, not to mention fantastic river views.
19. Meander through the Mews
I love a good London mews street, and the city center has no shortage. One of my top free things to do in London is to wander through the mews in Kensington, South Kensington, Notting Hill, and other London neighborhoods.
20. Walk in Search of Blue Plaques
London also has plenty of blue plaques on buildings where famous people once lived. Walking around areas like Bloomsbury and Hampstead to spot blue plaques is a fun way to spend an afternoon.
21. Walk Everywhere
In fact, walking everywhere in London is a great way to spend time. I’ve written a lot of free self-guided London walking toursthat will take you all over the city on foot.
Another of my favorite free things to do in London is visiting the museums. It’s amazing how many of them cost nothing to enter, and how impressive their collections are.
Few other cities have so much on display for free, and that’s always been something I appreciate about London.
9. British Museum
The British Museum houses antiquities from all over the world, and it’s inspiring to see everything from the Rosetta Stone to the Parthenon Sculptures in one place. It’s one of the most famous museums in the city, and it’s worth a special trip.
10. The National Gallery
The National Gallery is full of paintings and other works of fine art from around the world. From the Renaissance to the Impressionists, this museum is packed with world-class art.
11. Tate Modern
Tate Modern is known for its cutting-edge contemporary art and rotating exhibitions, and it also offers some of the best free views of London from its upper floors and viewing terrace.
12. Tate Britain
Tate Britain is a great museum for learning about British art through the ages. From historic paintings to modern sculpture, visiting this museum is one of the best free things to do in London for art.
13. Natural History Museum
The Natural History Museum is beautiful outside and in. The building itself is stunning, and inside there’s everything from dinosaur bones to exquisite gemstones. The secret garden is great as well.
14. The V&A
The V&A is a design lover’s heaven, and has impressive collections of fashion, furniture, art, and more. Its historic cafe is worth a special trip, too.
There’s no getting around it: London is expensive. But while the cost of living and visiting may seem high, the UK capital has a lot to do and see that doesn’t cost a thing. In fact, there are so many free things to do in London that days go by when I don’t spend much at all.
One of the great things about London is that a lot of the city’s best-loved attractions are free.
Most of the big museums are free to enter, a lot of the best views of the city are free to enjoy, and there’s tons of free entertainment on offer.
Above all, the city is beautiful enough that just walking around is a highlight in its own right.
I’ve picked my favorite free things to do in London for this blog post, and there are plenty more to experience on top of them. I hope they encourage you to see more of London while spending less.
Free Things to Do in London: The Parks
The parks are my favorite free things in London. From the Royal Parks to the local squares, London has an amazing amount of green space for a city its size. And that’s to say nothing of the gardens, which are worth a special trip to see.
1. Hyde Park
Hyde Park is one of London’s biggest and best parks, and is a great place to take in the flowers and watch the boats go by on the Serpentine.
2. St James’s Park
St James’s Park is full of birds from around the world and has beautiful gardens bordering the lake. The views from the bridge are stunning, too.
3. Green Park
Green Park is perfect for picnics in the warmer months, and has impressive daffodils in the spring. It’s a great place to wander after a visit to Buckingham Palace or a stroll down Piccadilly.
4. Holland Park
Holland Park has manicured gardens, peacocks, and lots of woodland walking paths. The spring flowers are gorgeous (as are the summer ones), and the Kyoto Garden is always a treat.
5. Regent’s Park
Regent’s Park is lovely when the roses are in bloom. The park also has events and festivals on throughout the year. But with lakes, gardens, and playing fields galore, there are enough free things to do in London without needing to pay for more.
6. Hampstead Heath
Hampstead Heath is one of London’s wildest parks. It’s a great place to go to feel far from the urban center of London. The views of the city from Parliament Hill are amazing, too.
7. Victoria Park
Victoria Park is full of gardens and boats, and is the perfect place for a wander in east London. From water features to a Chinese pagoda, there’s a lot to discover here.
8. Richmond Park
Richmond Park is famous for its deer, and its vast expanse makes it ideal for a good leg stretch. It’s packed with views, dogs, and horses, too, so there’s always something to see.
Compters – sometimes called counters – were small prisons for minor transgressors such as debtors, religious dissidents, drunks, prostitutes, homosexuals and asylum-seeking slaves. But their inmates were overwhelmingly debtors. They existed from medieval times and were all closed by the mid-19th century, their inmates being dispersed to other institutions.
London had two compters north of the river (Wood Street and Poultry) and one south (Borough). Wood Street was preceded by Bread Street until 1555 and succeeded in 1791 by Giltspur Street, but essentially the heyday of compters involved the three mentioned.
Compters were run by a sheriff and his staff, all of whom were essentially a law unto themselves, parliamentary inspectors having no jurisdiction within the walls. They charged inmates for everything essential to survival and comfort: food, drink, clothes, bedding, warmth, medicine – the lot. Many prisoners – by definition already having money problems – often found themselves in a downward spiral of increasing poverty and squalor. In theory they could take in work from outside – tailoring, shoe repairing and the like – but this seems rarely to have happened in practice. At their height in the 17th and 18th centuries, compters would often lose half a dozen inmates per week to disease, but there was on shortage of re-supply.
These institutions were notorious even in their own time with constant complaints from reformers and former prisoners via Parliament, newspapers and pamphleteering, to little avail. An Act of Parliament was passed in 1712 designed to alleviate the plight of demonstrably irredeemable debtors – it had little effect. It was not until the groundswell of Victorian reform was sufficiently powerful that compters were finally shut down for good in the 1850s.
Wood Street Compter
Wood Street Compter, in Cheapside, opened in 1555 as a replacement for Bread Street Compter from where all the inmates were transferred. Depending on how flush you were, when entering the compter you could choose to stay in the Master’s Side, the Knight’s Ward or the Hole, these names being self-explanatory as to what level of comfort you could expect. Every officer and every service had to be paid for by the prisoner, what was known as “garnish”. Incarceration in the compter could be a very expensive experience indeed. A pamphlet of 1617 complained that:
…when a gentleman is brought in by the watch for some misdemeanour committed, that he must pay at least an angell before he be discharged; he must pay twelvepence for turning the key at the master-side dore two shillings to the chamberleine, twelvepence for his garnish for wine, tenpence for his dinner, whether he stay or no, and when he comes to be discharged at the booke, it will cost at least three shillings and sixpence more, besides sixpence for the booke-keeper’s paines, and sixpence for the porter…
Wood Street Compter was burned down in the Great Fire and rebuilt within a few years. It was eventually closed in 1791 and its inmates transferred to the new Giltspur Street Compter.
Poultry Compter
Also based in Cheapside, Poultry was named because of its proximity to the poultry market. Compters did not officially have specialities, but Poultry was known for its Jewish and black inmates. The former was probably simply due to its proximity to Jewry with its concentration of Jewish residents. It is said that the compter escaped attack during the Gordon Riots of 1780 because Lord Gordon had strong Jewish sympathies. The black prisoners were almost all ex-slaves, whose legal status was ambiguous. Their owners claimed that they were still slaves, while reformers and the men themselves, reasonably argued that there was no slavery in Britain and therefore once on British soil they had become free men. It was shortly after an ex-slave James Somerset won his freedom in just such a case in 1772, that the poet William Cowper wrote:
Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs Imbibe our air, that moment they are free
Poultry Compter was pulled down in 1817.
Borough Compter
Borough was the only compter south of the river. Originally in Borough High Street, it moved to Tooley Street in 1717. It was overwhelmingly a debtors’ prison, but held a small number of proper felons over the years. It was closed in 1855, almost simultaneously with Giltspur Street, bringing an end to the era of compters.
Giltspur Street Compter
The newest of the compters, Giltspur Street opened in 1791, replacing Wood Street and absorbing some of Poultry’s inmates when that institution closed in 1817. It was based in Smithfield, opposite Newgate Prison. There was a plan to convert the compter into a full-fledged prison in 1819, but nothing came of it in the end. Giltspur Street was eventually closed in 1853 and demolished two years later.
Sources: Wikipedia, as per.The best source I found, drawn on heavily here, is Old and New London, Vol.1(1878) by Walter Thornbury, re-published online by British History Online (sponsored by the Centre for Metropolitan History). The bits about Wood Street Compter and Poultry Compter, as linked here.
There’s a new pedestrian crossing to try out in central London — Esperance Bridge in King’s Cross opened in July, spanning the Regent’s Canal at Granary Square and Pancras Square.
Designed by Moxon Architects and Arup (the latter was involved with King’s Cross station’s stunning roof), Esperance Bridge is a nod to a railway bridge built on the same spot in 1821, to transport coal to the goods yard.
It’s a simple, handsome structure made from carbon steel, stretching 25 metres and painted a red oxide hue, reminiscent of the Forth Bridge in Scotland.
The bridge mirrors a Victorian rail bridge that opened on this spot 200 years ago.
Esperance Bridge has been described by Robert Evans, CEO of King’s Cross as «one of the final pieces of the public realm jigsaw» in a transformation of the King’s Cross area which has seen scores of industrial buildings and landmarks converted for both public and private use, including Coal Drops Yard and Gasholders London.
The bridge’s integrated lighting, by Studio-29, is designed to have minimal impact on the canal and local wildlife
If you’re wondering about the bridge’s name, it was chosen by local children from King’s Cross Academy, and means ‘hope’ in French. Clearly they’ve got some smart primary school children in this part of London.
Ah, the famous red phone box. Symbol of London, but found all over the country.
The box as we know it was designed by Giles Gilbert Scott, supposedly inspired by the tomb of Sir John Soane in St Pancras churchyard.
The ‘K2’, as it was called, was not the first phone box, and by no means the last. In this illustration, we chart the different species of kiosk to appear on our streets. The main diagonal in the image shows the ‘official’ lineage of phone boxes commissioned by the General Post Office and later BT. Side branches are more whimsical.
Out of Order, an artwork in Kingston Upon Thames by David Mach.
In recent years, the need for phone boxes has greatly diminished. Many have been put to new and novel use, such as book swaps, work desks and even sushi stalls. Meanwhile, artists such as Banksy have changed the (dialling) tone with creative works of phone box art.
The latest and much-derided successor to the K2 is the Link from BT. These sleek monoliths offer free calls, phone charging, ultrafast wifi and other digital services, so long as you’re happy to share your data with a range of companies. Is this the last gasp in the hundred-year evolution of the phone booth?
Two new coins designed in celebration of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee have been unveiled by the Royal Mint.
The release of the 50p and a £5 crown is the first chance for collectors to own a keepsake from the Platinum Jubilee collection.
The 50p is the first of its kind to celebrate a royal event, while the £5 coin follows the tradition of marking previous jubilees on crown pieces.
The £5 crown (Ben Birchall/PA)
Each of the coins features a new and unique design by a commissioned artist and the obverse portrait of the Queen, designed by Jody Clark.
There will also be £2 coins recognizing the life and legacy of Dame Vera Lynn and Alexander Graham Bell.
There will also be a 50p coin marking next year’s Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
The coin marking the Commonwealth Games (Ben Birchall/PA)
Clare Maclennan, from the Royal Mint, said: “Each year, the Royal Mint unveils a series of commemorative coins to celebrate key milestones that helped shape Britain and this year’s annual set is particularly special with a new 50 pence, £5 crown and special platinum set in celebration of Her Majesty the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
“As the original maker of UK coins, the Royal Mint has been trusted to strike coins for Her Majesty throughout a historic 70 years on the throne and celebrated royal milestones such as previous jubilees on commemorative crown pieces.
“The Platinum Jubilee celebration is a spectacular first for the British monarchy and for UK coins, and it is fitting that this historic anniversary has been celebrated on 50 pence – which is Britain’s most loved, collectible coin.”
The Dame Vera Lynn coin (Ben Birchall/PA)
The Platinum Jubilee 50p has been designed by Osborne Ross and features a clean reverse design that comprises the number 70, The Queen’s cipher, and the years that span her reign.
The £5 crown has been designed by John Bergdahl and features a regal design centralized by the quartered shield of the Royal Arms.
The precious metals versions also include the edge inscription “Serve you all the days of my life” in reference to The Queen’s longevity as monarch.
The £2 Dame Vera Lynn coin features a portrait of the Second World War forces’ sweetheart at the height of her fame.
The Alexander Graham Bell coin (Ben Birchall/PA)
The centenary of the death of Alexander Graham Bell has been recognized with a £2 coin designed by Henry Gray.
The reverse of the coin shows the dial of a push-button phone, along with the words “Pioneer of the telephone” inscribed on the buttons.
Finally, the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games 50p has been designed by the Royal Mint’s Natasha Preece.
London has many squares, but few were built as the public open spaces they are today — many were conceived as garden squares, intended to be communal gardens for the inhabitants of the houses that surrounded them.
The London square started in the 1630s with Covent Garden, built in imitation of the piazzas of Italian cities. Between the 17th and 19th centuries the city’s squares multiplied, as the urban sprawl got under way.
Here are some of the stories behind the names of some of the best-known squares:
Berkeley Square
Immortalised by the song about the nightingale, Berkeley Square dates back to the 1730s and is named after the aristocratic Berkeley family who used to own the land. Their name comes from the manor of Berkeley in Gloucestershire which was given to an ancestor after the Norman Conquest; it means ‘birch lea’ (a lea being the Anglo-Saxon name for a field). The square is, however, more noted for its towering plane trees than any mere birch.
Bloomsbury Square
This square dates back to the 1660s and was originally called Southampton Square (after the Earl of Southampton, who developed it), although the current name has been used since the early 18th century. The name Bloomsbury derives from Blemondisberi — the bury (manor) of William de Blemond, a Norman who acquired the land in 1201. It’s now part of the Russell Estate (more about this under Russell Square).
Covent Garden
It may not have the word ‘square’ in the title, but this was London’s first square — laid out by the architect Inigo Jones (1573-1652) in the Italianate style in the 1630s. The name is older — the land was owned by Westminster Abbey during the Middle Ages, and was referred to as ‘the garden of the Abbot and Convent of Westminster’ in the 13th century. The name Covent Garden (‘covent’ being a corruption of ‘convent’) had evolved by the 16th century.
Fitzroy Square
This square in Fitzrovia was laid out on land belonging to the FitzRoy family. Their name (the ‘r’ can be upper-case or lower-case) is a corruption of the French ‘fils du roi’ and means ‘son of the king’. It was a surname given to various illegitimate royal offspring — in this case Henry FitzRoy (1663-1690), the son of Charles II and Barbara Villiers, who was given the title Duke of Grafton. Euston Square also owes its name to the FitzRoy family — it’s the name of their country estate (Euston Hall, near the Suffolk village of Euston).
Golden Square
Believed to have been designed by Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723), this historic square in Soho dates back to the 1670s. The site had previously been part of a wider area called Windmill Fields although this particular bit was known as Gelding Close, presumably because it was used as a grazing-area for geldings (castrated horses). In this particular instance, the name ‘Golden’ is almost certainly a refined corruption of ‘gelding’.
Granary Square
This new public space north of King’s Cross Station opened in 2012. It is named for the Granary Building, built in the mid-19th century and used to store wheat that had been brought down from Lincolnshire by train for London’s bakers. It was designed by the civil engineer Lewis Cubitt (1799-1883), who also gave us King’s Cross Station.
Grosvenor Square
This is one of several grand garden squares that takes its name from the aristocratic and very rich Grosvenor family. They own most of Belgravia and Mayfair which they developed in the early 19th century (the head of the family, the Duke of Westminster, is one of the major landowners in the country). Elsewhere, Belgrave Square got its name from one of the family’s subsidiary titles, Viscount Belgrave — Belgrave being a village in Cheshire close to the family’s country home of Eaton Hall, after which Eaton Square is named. The family name derives from the Norman French gros veneur, meaning ‘chief huntsman’.
Leicester Square
That square which American tourists find so hard to pronounce dates from 1670 and was named after Leicester House, a mansion which was owned by local landowner Robert Sidney, the Earl of Leicester (1595-1677). The title, which dates back to the 12th century, refers to the city in the East Midlands, which was recorded as ‘Ligora-ceastre’ in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. ‘Ligora’ is assumed to have been an earlier name for the River Soar, while ‘ceastre’ derives from the Latin castrum (a building or plot of land used as a military position).
Parliament Square
Located next to the Houses of Parliament, this public square was laid out in 1868 with the aim of opening up the space around the Palace of Westminster and improving traffic flow. It is, of course, named after Parliament – which has its origins in the Anglo-Norman word parlement. Originally this meant any discussion or negotiation, but over time it came to mean a legislative group summoned by the monarch. The term was derived from the verb parler (to talk).
Paternoster Square
This noughties development next to St Paul’s Cathedral is named after Paternoster Row, which was destroyed in the Blitz. Pater Noster is Latin for ‘Our Father’, the first words of the Lord’s Prayer, and Paternoster Row apparently got its name from the (pre-Reformation) monks and clergy of St Paul’s who used to process around the area on the feast day of Corpus Christi (60 days after Easter). It’s said that they set off along Paternoster Row chanting the Lord’s Prayer, which they finished by the time they reached Amen Corner, following which they would chant the Hail Mary (Ave Maria) as they turned down Ave Maria Lane.
Russell Square
Another square named after an aristocratic family, in this case the Russells who owned and developed Bloomsbury in the 17th and 18th centuries. Their land is the Russell Estate, and their name is of Norman origin — either from a nickname (the Norman French for ‘red’, used to refer to someone with red hair) or a place (the village of Rosel, near Caen). Other nearby Russell-owned squares include Bedford Square (the head of the family is the Duke of Bedford), Tavistock Square (Marquis of Tavistock is a subsidiary title) and Woburn Square (their country home, Woburn Abbey in Hertfordshire).
Sloane Square
Named after Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753), the physician and naturalist who is best known for bequeathing his vast collection of objects (books, manuscripts, animal and plant specimens, drawings, antiquities, etc) to the nation – leading to the foundation of the British Museum. Born in Ireland but of Scottish ancestry, his surname is an Anglicisation of the Gaelic sluaghadhan, meaning the leader of a military expedition.
Soho Square
This dates back to 1681 and was originally called King’s Square after Charles II, whose statue stands here. The name ‘Soho’ first appeared in the 17th century and is widely believed to have derived from an old hunting call.
Trafalgar Square
This part of London was long a landmark before it even became a public square — having been the King’s Mews and used as stables by Whitehall Palace from the 14th to the late-17th century. Commissioners of HM Woods Forests and Land Revenues instructed Nash to design plans for Trafalgar Square on the site where the King’s Mews had been, in 1826. It was originally to have been named after William IV, but the king himself favoured ‘Trafalgar Square’, and this has been in use since 1832.
And finally, the story behind London’s most famous fictional square…
Albert Square
Supposedly located in the ‘London Borough of Walford’, the focal point of EastEnders isn’t really in London — the set is at the BBC’s Elstree Studios in Borehamwood. It’s named after Prince Albert (1819-1861), the husband of Queen Victoria. Real-life inspiration for Albert Square is Fassett Square in Hackney.
Amid the ongoing march of high street homogenisation, London has many charmingly independent and unique shop fronts, ushering us into delights within. Here’s a selection from the book, London Shopfronts.
Terry’s Cafe, Borough
The façade of this backstreet café, a stone’s throw from Borough market, has maintained the same no-frills air since it was bought by the late Terry Yardley, a master butcher, in 1982. Inside, however, is a different matter. Hundreds of black-and-white photos line the walls, interspersed with bon mots, vintage food posters and a collection of decorative plates. Add red-and-white checked tablecloths, and the result is a combination of British nostalgia and ‘roll your sleeves up’ grit.
Presiding over the action is Terry’s son Austin (pictured). As much compère as chef, he’s grown up among the local community since he took his first Saturday job here at the age of 14. Home cooking is the order of the day, and Austin balks at the idea of the café being labelled a greasy spoon. ‘That’s not what we’re about,’ he says. ‘For years, we’ve provided well-cooked food to set you up for the day. When Dad first opened, our customers were working men – industrial scaffolders, telephone engineers, removal guys. Orders were taken on handwritten tickets, and we pretty much memorised our regulars’ favourites.’
The façade of this 1950s building has been reworked to expand into the premises next door, and its fascia has been repainted. Austin’s most popular breakfast combos are written in chalk pen on an old antique mirror. ‘Over the years, I’ve chased the pound note around a bit trying different ventures, but now I see myself as a shopkeeper first and foremost.’
156–158 Great Suffolk Street, SE1 1PE
James Smith & Sons, Bloomsbury
In a city known for its unpredictable weather, it’s hardly surprising that such a prominent building is devoted to the business of umbrellas. Billing itself as ‘catering for the likely eventualities of the British weather since 1830’, this corner-sited store was the first to sell Samuel Fox’s novel steel-ribbed brollies.
James Smith, son of the shop’s founder, moved the business to this location in 1857, when a freshly minted New Oxford Street was considered both fashionable and cosmopolitan. The Grade II-listed building, now overseen by store manager Philip Naisbitt (pictured), has barely changed since then, and remains one of the city’s most complete original Victorian shopfronts. Remnants of a previous business were unearthed during the 1990s, when a sign for ‘Commonwealth Dairies’ was discovered under the current façade, while the shop’s existing ladies’ section is set into what was formerly an oven opening.
The exterior’s intricate stucco work, wrought-iron balconies, mahogany-framed windows and enamelled glasswork is in keeping with the ‘more is more’ decorative approach of the era.
Inside, the rich detail continues, with original late-Victorian wood counters and showcases — a rare survival in the city. Of special note is the balcony office, from where all parts of the shop can be viewed with the aid of tilted mirrors. With made-to-measure walking sticks now available alongside umbrellas, trade remains as brisk as it was nearly two centuries ago. After all, Londoners can always count on the arrival of an ill-timed downpour, whatever the season.
Hazelwood House, 53 New Oxford Street, WC1A 1BL
Berry Bros. & Rudd, St James’s
It’s a feat to maintain a largely unaltered shopfront through three centuries, but for London’s original wine and spirits merchant, little has changed since these two Georgian terraced houses were conjoined. Elegant, arcaded windows are inset into a timber façade, giving way to a wood-panelled listed interior, complete with original shelving and fittings. To the left of the shopfront, a passage has been chiselled out to provide direct access to the rear.
Now known for its vast stock of more than four thousand wines, the shop began life as a grocer’s and coffee house, started by a woman known only as ‘Widow Bourne’. Original coffee weighing scales still hang from the ceiling, part of a number of dusty artefacts that have accumulated here through the centuries. For years, these scales were also used to weigh fashionable visitors, including Lord Byron.
The shop is still run by Bourne’s descendants, who have largely resisted displaying their wares. Wines and spirits are carefully stowed in the basement, giving the store-cum-office, with its tables and counters, the air of an old- fashioned consulting room. These days, a modern, fully stocked shop around the corner satisfies those who prefer to examine the labels.
‘Though we’ve contemporised our business, aesthetically, very little has changed,’ says Geordie Willis, eighth generation of the Berry family. ‘In fact, recently, we took a paint sample from the original façade, which was beneath decades’ worth of layers of paint. The green-black colour you can see today is a replica of the original.’
3 St James’s Street, SW1A 1EG
Hurlingham Books, Fulham
With its windows densely piled with colourful spines, this second-hand bookshop (and unofficial community centre) is something of an icon on its Fulham side street.
This isn’t a store that offers a curated, alphabetised selection: the joy of browsing here lies in the prospect of rooting out an unexpected treasure, whether that’s a dogeared classic, a well-thumbed popular novel or the occasional first edition. Those that happen to spot what they want amid the precarious piles in the window are asked to stand outside and point at it while an equally wobbly stepladder is fetched. Trestle tables outside groan with £1 paperbacks, and it’s not unusual for owner Ray Cole (pictured) to find a few coins on his doorstep in the morning in payment for books picked up overnight by avid readers. There’s no inventory or stocktake here — instead, more than two thousand books jostle for space, with a further two million stored in a warehouse nearby.
The 19th-century building is thought to have once been a dairy. Ray took over the premises, then a furniture restorer’s workshop, in the 1990s, and neither the shopfront nor the two triangular rooms inside have changed since. One of the delicate leadlight windows still has a hole in it, a decade after it was accidentally broken by a snowball. No matter — it is patched up with books, much like the rest of this delightfully rickety store.
Ranelagh Gardens, 91 Fulham High Street, SW6 3JS
Alice’s, Notting Hill
With its pillar-box red frontage, signage that suggests a Victorian travelling circus and a rotating display of stock spilling out on to the pavement, this corner store is hard to miss. On any given day, its exterior might feature hanging pails, upcycled shop signs and framed prints, and you might even spot flocks of plastic pink flamingos jostling for space among the trunks and kitsch chinaware. ‘You have to put on a show for people,’ says owner Douglas Carter, who insists that he buys whatever strikes a chord, and isn’t afraid of tapping into the local tourist trade.
The shop sprang to life courtesy of Douglas’s grandfather, rag-and-bone man Minky Warren, who collected bottles, scrap metal, clothes, brass and copper. In the 1950s, he ran a busy barrow trade from the backyard, renting out carts to local vendors and selling on their finds. Eventually, he bought the premises and passed the business on to his sons — who initially painted the frontage orange, before landing on its trademark red.
Renamed ‘Alice’s’ in the 1970s in honour of Douglas’s mother, the store exudes playfulness, seen in everything from the pieces it upcycles to its jam-packed window displays. Key to its longevity is a willingness to regularly change things up. ‘My dad used to paint scenes directly on to the windows,’ says Douglas. ‘One week, it might be a man sitting in the bath playing the trombone; the next, a lady cleaning windows.’ It’s this sense of irreverence that keeps his exuberant business on the map.
86 Portobello Road, W11 2QD
JamJar Flowers, Walworth
Tucked away in a residential Walworth side street, a window packed full of vintage glassware is the first thing most people notice about this studio, whose aim is ‘to tell stories with flowers’. It is part of a collective of workshops housed within a cobbled yard built in the 1870s. Early precursors of the modern live- work concept, the studios are now occupied largely by creatives, including artists, makers and architects.
‘Initially, the shop was dark, unloved and grubby, with opaque window coverings,’ says floral designer Melissa Richardson (pictured with co-director Amy Fielding). But it was close to New Covent Garden Flower Market, and had wide double doors at the side and an ancient overhead pulley system, useful for drying flowers. ‘It also had atmosphere. It felt like a bit of Victorian London, as if time had stood still.’
Though more studio than shop, Melissa felt the Victorian façade called for signage. She commissioned model-maker Fran Lloyd to make a vintage-looking banner for the fascia. Across the inside of the window, simple shelves were fashioned out of scaffolding poles and planks to house an ever-growing collection of ridged poison bottles and mid-century genie vessels. Inside, a reclaimed table, an old draper’s unit and a butler’s sink are both practical and pleasing.
‘We added ‘bespoke’ to the signage to try to put people off from turning up to buy flowers or glass on the spot, but it didn’t really work,’ Melissa says. ‘The shopfront intrigues people and they still knock to have a look round. But secretly, we rather like that.’
7a Peacock Yard, Iliffe Street, SE17 3LH
Saint Aymes, Marble Arch
The bloom-loaded frontage of this café and confectionery store is a colourful talking point in its street of stucco-fronted Georgian townhouses just west of Marble Arch. Severely damaged in the Blitz, the upper storeys were recently rebuilt in reclaimed brick, and this ground-floor shop, formerly a drycleaner’s, was reinvigorated by sisters Lois and Michela Wilson (both pictured).
The shop is named after their Barbadian grandparents, Eric and Thyra Aymes, whose abundant Surrey garden provided a colourful counterpoint to the sisters’ Hackney upbringing. ‘We grew up with a keen sense of how to make things beautiful,’ says Lois. ‘Our grandmother is a seamstress and loves soft furnishings, while coffee and jazz were permanent fixtures in our home.’ As a result, there are plenty of luxurious details within this powder-pink café, from its gold-fronted counter to an interior flower wall. The menu is playfully off-beat too, including a ‘unicorn latte’ that arrives with a pink, blue or lilac hue, sprinkled with edible gold.
Outside, the floral frontage defies the seasons, being a faux addition. There have been a few iterations since the store opened in 2018, from purple wisteria to the current cherry blossom. ‘There’s a dreamlike quality to hanging flowers,’ says Lois. ‘The Caribbean is largely evergreen, so perhaps our floral façade recreates that sense of abundance. We believe that beauty brings out a person’s higher purpose, in much the same way that a well-built church is uplifting. Recreating a little of that magic here makes us feel good.’
59 Connaught Street, W2 2BB
Rinkoffs, Bethnal Green
When Hyman Rinkoff started his East End bakery in 1911, he probably didn’t think his face would be gracing the façade of this store more than a century later.
Having fled an uncertain political landscape in his native Ukraine, the master baker set up in Old Montague Street, ultimately living above the shop with his seven children. Since then, the business has expanded to incorporate this nearby corner deli with its painted wall mural of Hyman, commissioned by his grandson Ray Rinkoff (pictured with his daughter Jennifer).
Though it was born to serve the local Jewish community with braided challahs, bagels and plavas, the bakery also has a brisk trade in Danishes, cupcakes, Easter and Christmas treats and, more recently, the ‘crodough’ – a croissant-doughnut hybrid. At one point in the early 2000s, Rinkoffs was producing up to forty thousand muffins a week for Caffè Nero.
When Hyman first set up shop, the area was a Jewish immigrant hub, with dozens of bakeries competing to serve the local community. Since then, many of them have closed, and a thriving Bangladeshi population has settled in the area. ‘I employed a great Algerian baker in 1975, and now several of our team happen to be Muslim,’ says Ray. ‘We work side by side, we respect each other’s traditions and we look after each other like family.’ Hyman’s skills, honed in the port city of Odessa, have passed through five generations of his family, and spread into the wider community too.
79 Vallance Road, E1 5BS
W. Martyn, Muswell Hill
When grocer William Martyn set up shop here in 1897, the premises were newly minted. Built by architect James Edmundson, the store was part of what was originally known as Queen’s Parade — a row of tall, practical shopfronts created to serve the burgeoning suburb of Muswell Hill.
As the first to occupy the premises, William made his mark with elegant interiors comprising matchboard panelling, mahogany shelving and numbered storage caddies, which are all still in place today. Outside, the family name was engraved into the fascia, and tall plate glass windows put in to showcase the food-laden shelves within. In the 1920s, the shopfront was panelled with stained glass, but by the 1940s, the façade had been tweaked to accommodate the current wider windows, Vitrolite fascia and mosaic-floored porch.
‘Over the years, we evolved to specialise in tea, hand-roasted coffee and fine foods, from dried fruit and nuts to chutneys, preserves, chocolate, cereals, jams and marmalades,’ says William, great-grandson of the store’s founder, whose aim is to stock unusual but affordable goods. And although its offering has necessarily progressed to avoid the jaws of supermarket chains, aesthetically, little else has altered. ‘My father wasn’t a great one for change unless it was purposeful,’ reflects William. Fortunately, that means a perfectly preserved shopfront, noted for its elegant signage and a welcome that often includes a cup of tea for regulars.
135 Muswell Hill Broadway, N10 3RS
Wenty’s Tropical Foods, Forest Gate
With its spearmint-green façade and daily medley of fruit laid out on trestle tables in front, this grocer’s brings a hit of colour to the surrounding suburb. Owner Wentworth Newland (pictured), known to all by his nickname, Wenty, settled in the area in the 1960s after leaving Jamaica as a teen. At first, he earned a living selling Jamaican specialties door-to-door from the back of a van, before opening the shop in the mid-1980s.
Soon, locals dropped by regularly for yams, plantain, coconuts, mangos, avocados and, of course, sugar cane, whose many alleged benefits Wenty still shares with all and sundry.
The band of yellow painted across the doorstep means it proudly incorporates all the colours of the Jamaican flag, while its hand-painted typography and simple illustration by a local signwriter form part of a fascia that hasn’t changed since the shop opened.
‘When I set up, it was nearly impossible to find tropical foods in the area,’ says Wenty. ‘I was craving the flavours of home, and so I knew that others who had settled here would be too.’
Now in its fourth decade, the store is a blend of vibrant colour and haphazard detailing. Pineapples hang from wire-fronted windows, sharing space with boxes of mangos. Random business cards are pinned to the doorframe, along with handwritten ads for Uber Eats. Inside, the shelves are lined with Scotch Bonnet pepper sauce, tins of callaloo, juices and condiments in an atmosphere of relaxed yet organised chaos.
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