What’s on in Guildford? Fortunately some communities still have a growing clutch of neighborhood retailers – old family companies, tiny shops, as well as specialist companies. Guildford’s High Road may have a mix that’s rather prejudiced in the direction of well-known brand names, yet as soon as you take the little alleys and also smaller sized roads that escape it, you’ll locate a diverse mix of buying.
Guildford also has not one, however two hat shops. Undergo the arched gate of the Angel Resort and also you locate a long, thin courtyard, with The Hat Box. It truly is a box, just one little area absolutely chock-full of hats as well as headpieces. There are tweed and also velvet hats, purple as well as red felt hats, fascinators and also flat caps, berets and also beanies – great deals of hats for every day, along with the typical wedding celebration as well as Ascot hats.
Discharge in the other instructions down Castle Street as well as you’ll locate the Mad Hatter, where alongside the ready-to-wear and developer hats you can commission your very own bespoke headgear from Chapeaux Kiki. There are pashminas as well as handwear covers also and also glorious Italian umbrellas with double skins, to ensure that a solemn black umbrella could open out to present a glorious shocking red under-side.
If you have a craving for sweets, head down Church Street to discover Sweets, a traditional confectioners – the kind with huge jars of toffee bonbons, chocolate eclairs, nut breakable, gobstoppers as well as coconut teacakes in the home window. If actual retro darlings to recover your shed youth aren’t rather your thing, the store likewise stocks Belgian chocolates for miss.
Shed youths can additionally be redeemed at The Bear Yard in Jeffries Flow, which sells Steiff as well as Merrythought teddy bears. You may not believe it matters what sort of bear you get, however invest a little time with the bears and also you’ll see there’s a significant amount of difference in between an active, beady-eyed Steiff and a furry, bemused-looking Canterbury Bear. There are even artist bears – Barbara-Ann bears in intense hippy colours, for example – as well as animals from tabby pet cats to crocodiles, apes and also bumblebees. You can also get a polar bear for your youngsters to ride – miles cuddlier than a rocking steed!
Back to usefulness. Tunsgate, via the fantastic neo-classical gateway of the old Corn Exchange, provides a mixture of stores consisting of electronic devices, cameras, as well as The Knob Connection, where you can locate door, home window as well as cabinet handles, hinges, door knockers, takes care of and letter boxes. If like me you’ve wound up with a great deal of instead monotonous Ikea furnishings, you can jazz it up with some brand-new manages.
Tunsgate does have a few much less down to earth stores, as well; Cry for the Moon offers antique and pre-owned jewelry, and also is a mandatory window-stopping shop for anyone that enjoys jewels, with a window display full of great Victorian and Edwardian pieces. You may listen to the tap-tap-tap of a planishing hammer, also, since the store has a workshop on the properties and also takes compensations in addition to doing fixings.
If you still haven’t located fairly what you desired, you may such as to recognize that Guildford has three different branches of Oxfam!
Or on Fridays and Saturdays, you can go to the marketplace in North Road, with a wide range of stalls. There’s family pet food, jewellery, clothing, a fishmonger and also a butcher, deli stalls, reduced blossoms, as well as newly ground coffee – and also there is an absolutely wicked cupcake delay, from which I got a fantastic sponge cake with dried fruit and also pistachios. I was amused to locate in a 18th century map in the gallery that North Road was initially called ‘Upper Behind’ – being the northern ‘rear end’ of the High Street. Besides this growing market, there’s a farmer’s market in the High Road on the very first Tuesday of each month, with over 50 farmers and neighborhood producers.
Certainly a purchasing experience with a bit of a distinction – and the lovely thing about Guildford is that you can combine this with a walk down the cobbled High Road, admiring the design, or a flounder to the castle maintain to overlook across Guildford to the North Downs, a truly incredible sight considering the extremely little effort needed to get there. I can’t consider several better means to while away a Saturday morning – maybe with the pledge of five-o’clock tea afterwards at the close-by Enjoyment restaurant.
