On Brixton Road between Stockwell and Ferndale Roads lies the old Quin & Axtens building. According to the Brixton Blog, this building (once a big department store, taken over by Bon Marche, then bombed in the war - read the history) is to become a 250-bed hotel with the entrance opposite the O2 Academy. Also offices and a nightclub, a couple of shops and some studio space). Not exactly clear when (for better or worse) this transformation is going to happen, but in the meantime, two establishments that previously had big footprints (The Jobcentre and Mothercare) have sadly closed and the spaces have been taken over by two temporary shopping arcades: Brixton Mall and Brixton Palza (sic). With the diversity of shoppers in Brixton, I wondered what shops I might personally find useful within these bittersweet temporary shopping caverns. I go past them every day. Their entrances give little away. What mysteries might lie behind the entrances facing Brixton Road? I decided that it was time to explore.
I'm sure the shops change quite a bit, but as of today, the highlights of Brixton Mall for me are:
Apologies to the establishments: I haven't got the knack of Instagrammable phototaking yet... they looked lovely!
Again, I'm probably going to have to update this as the Palza fills up, but as of today, there is one clear highlight for me, since I've been baking a lot recently:
So in the hypothetical battle between Brixton Mall and Brixton Palza, the Mall has more cool stuff, but the Palza does have that very nice party shop... Maybe we'd better wait and see what else comes into the Palza, since at the moment, the Mall is so much more occupied. The Poundland shop is next to go - another huge footprint within that block (and I'm going to miss it - I bought a lot of piping bags, cleaning products, and other random things there). I wonder what will pop up in that space...
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AuthorI moved to Brixton in 2015 with my wife and dog, from faraway Camberwell, via Washington, Tokyo and Hong Kong... Archives
September 2019
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