Now here is a collection of weird shit. So taxidermy and monkey skulls I get, but Labrador’s testicles in jars? It’s hard not to like it here, I mean there aren’t many places where you hear the staff shout, “the ocelot fur coats are in the kid’s coffin under the mortuary table in the back [...]

Le Grenier appears to be the official retailer of 70’s Crockery. Full sets of brown and orange tea cups, sugar pots and tea jars interspersed with eclectic jewellery, retro furniture, exciting knick knacks and old record players in suitcases which are so pretentious it makes me want to throw up. This shop probably survives in [...]

Koenig books hosts a collection of wanky art books with beautiful covers and artistically out of focus photographs. It does have a huge selection though so if you do have £50 to burn on a book you will look through once then leave around to use as a coaster you will no doubt find something [...]

Easily my favourite ‘junk shop’ in London. Beedell Coram is stocked full of Victorian paintings, taxidermy, antique furniture, books, postcards and old medicine jars all lovingly displayed with no order or thought to presentation whatsoever. When she’s not drunk in the Golden Hart pub next door this is where ?????* collects her miniature tea sets, [...]

Situated on a street which is home to a scummy street market selling stolen toilet paper and knock off household products with old immigrants and market people yelling at each other and groups of Eastern European and Asian kids hanging out in intimidating groups cutting school is Alfies Antiques Market. A vast cavern of Antique [...]

One of the last remnants of the pre-gentrified Broadway market, F. Cooke dates back to the days before the street was thick with Cypressa vans delivering organic goods. When I politely ask if I may take a photo, I get an obvious “aye roll along” with a weary sigh and a “what’s it for?” “My [...]

The sister shop to Kokon To Zai in Soho but this one is so much more exciting, marrying together my twin obsessions death and clothes. It’s a menagerie of gorgeous stuff, taxidermy, glass domes, phallic shaped sculptures from A Clockwork Orange, gothic jewellery, weird clothes, beautiful staff, amazing antiques the collection just goes on and [...]

Until I discovered Petersham Nurseries “Let’s go to Kew Gardens” were 5 words I wasn’t keen on hearing. Kew Gardens is hugely over-rated and expensive. If you’re looking for a nice day out in the park then Richmond Park is a better idea the best part being afternoon tea or lunch at nearby Petersham Nurseries. [...]

Fortnum and Mason is a palace of food, it’s also a one-stop-tourist hole from hell. What was once the grocer to Queen Victoria’s court is now a giant food themed gift shop (unless you buy all your food in pretty tins). But what a gift shop it is. The window displays are worth a visit [...]

This is the kind of place I’d recommend if you were looking for something random like say, a dressmakers dummy or an antique mousetrap. It’s effectively a junk shop but really well organised and edited to only the best stuff without charging a fortune for it. Needless to say they always have vast amounts of [...]

Buying the most boring household items had never been so fun. From enamel colanders and bread tins to horsehair brooms to linen dishtowels to stainless steel kettles and old-fashioned school notebooks. Labour and Wait specialise in all things timeless, traditional and simple right down to the tin lampshades, buying a dustpan and brush has taken [...]

Tucked behind Upper Street, Pierrepont Arcade is a collection of little antique and vintage shops. Tiny but stocked to the rafters, I always come across something to take up space in my closet that I will never actually wear, be it a Barbie themed charm bracelet or a mirrored waistcoat to go with my recent [...]

You’d be forgiven for thinking that either of these places are cheap, as everything, be it animal trophies, Victorian taxidermy, bevelled antique mirrors, old school science lab work benches, old poison bottles, old fashioned wooden clothes mannequins or stacks of rusty tins are just casually thrown in. Well they are but I imagine that’s because [...]

I have a routine where each month at some point I go to borders and gather as many magazines off the racks as I can carry, all the while avoiding the irritated glare of the store assistants who know fine well that I have no intention of either a) buying any of them b) putting [...]

Magma is one of those lovely bookshops which sells all those wanky graphics books and expensive documentary dvd’s about fashion designers, plus every arty magazine in circulation, literally floor to ceiling, with guys who dress like members of Blur standing around with an open book looking into space, mouth slightly open as they’ve just found [...]