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London Shops With a Past

By Genevieve Paiement

Whoever said they don’t make ’em like they used to hasn’t been to London lately.

In London, chances are you’ll stumble upon a specialty shop that’s been selling the same thing in the same spot for a century or three. Here are five stellar spots for mixing history with retail therapy, jolly ol’ England style.

Paxton & Whitfield

Over the years, everyone from Winston Churchill to Nigella Lawson has sung the praises of this shop, where the wares are kept out on the counter. No wonder it feels like one big cheese cabinet. (Bring a scarf to ward off the chill.) What began as a modest market stall in 1742 had by 1850 blossomed into the official cheese supplier to Queen Victoria. After admiring their collection of gorgeous slate cheeseboards, I was allowed to taste-test nearly a half-dozen of the U.K.’s best offerings. I walked away a happy customer with some Crockhamdale hard ewe’s milk cheese from the West Midlands and its perfect match: a jar of P&W quince paste.

James Smith & Sons Umbrella Shop

Dropping by James Smith & Sons Umbrella Shop is like visiting a glass-fronted shrine to the most essential accessory in drizzly London: the humble brolly. There’s classic black with a cane handle or multicoloured with a foot-shaped ivory handle. There are even umbrellas with wooden handles shaped like a schnauzer or a parrot. It’s all here, most of it manufactured in the basement below the shop. Run by the same family since 1830, the shop also stocks canes, sling seats and curiosities like a replica of Toulouse-Lautrec’s drinking stick (a walking stick containing two glasses and a flask).

Fortnum & Mason

Co-founded by one of Queen Anne’s footmen in 1707, London’s oldest department store is looking pretty darn fantastic these days, thanks to a recent $50-million refurbishment in honour of its 300th birthday. Its Christmas hampers are the stuff of legend; one, in particular, costs over $40,000 and is delivered by horse and carriage. I peeked into the cushy, powder puff of a top-floor tea room, drenched in pastel colours, then headed to the basement food hall to hunt for such terribly English house-made delicacies as the rum-fortified Dark Navy Orange Marmalade or Ruby Red Game Relish, “a worthy partner for furred and feathered game.”

Hatchards

Founded in 1797, London’s oldest bookshop was once frequented by Oscar Wilde and Lord Byron, and it’s still well loved by today’s bestselling authors. (Note the window displays of signed editions by the likes of Jeanette Winterson and Michael Ondaatje.) Wander up and down the stairs that span four floors and through the many cozy carpeted rooms, where nearly every square inch of space is covered with books, glorious books, on tables or floor-to-ceiling dark green shelves.

James Lock & Co.

Even if a custom-made, vintage satin top hat will likely never grace your cranium, a visit to James Lock & Co. hatters, where gents and fops have flocked since 1676, is still fun. Browsing the tequila palm fibre panama hats, tweed hunting caps and angora felt fedoras in this compact storefront feels like time travelling through hat history. After all, they invented the bowler hat here in 1850 and have hatted everyone from Lord Nelson and General de Gaulle to Jackie O and Princess Diana.

(Genevieve Paiement lives in Montreal but can’t seem to stay in one place for very long. Her writing has appeared in publications like Time Out Paris, the Sydney Morning Herald and enRoute magazine.)