If there's one thing I love, it's a specialty shop. When I lived in Tokyo one of my favourite things was to walk through a whole neighbourhood packed with literally hundreds of book shops, or musical instrument shops, or snowboard shops. With a few exceptions (Like Hatton Row), specialty shops are more scattered in London. It's fun when they're hidden and I happen upon them. So it was delightful, when on the hunt for some acrylic paint, to find lurking in a completely unexpected corner of Brixton... Kingshield Stationers, Arts and Crafts (387 Brixton Rd). I don't think it has a website. It barely even has a shopfront. But it has persisted for 30 years so far as one of the best art shops in the area. Why do I call it 'hidden', you ask? Because it's on the first floor above a pharmacy that is in itself the very most delightful pharmacy in Brixton, Kingshield Pharmacy, a little oasis of serenity that makes you feel like you have stepped from the chaos of Brixton Road into a little village pharmacy of yore. It's small and lovely and friendly. Trust me. Climb the stairs from the charming little pharmacy and emerge into an quiet little artist's paradise of specialty papers, paints, equipment and interesting things. I mean, there's special sketchpads for everything from watercolours to manga. There's easels. There's acrylics and oils. There's Fimo. There are lovely big sheets of coloured cardboard and paper in different colours. There are even these amazing stencils I loved when I was in high school so you could draw beakers and bunsen burners and other high school science equipment in your exercise book (which they also sell). Thinking of standing in that hellish post office queue for a particular type of envelope? No need! Kingshield Stationers has a great selection. All sensibly priced too. They even have a Western Union in the back if you're looking for that.
This is the sort of shop that just makes you feel happy (if you like art supplies). And what's more, they have been here for THIRTY YEARS. Sure you could buy your Brixton art supplies in WH Smith or the Pound Shop, if you wanted basic equipment in a dull environment. If you buy your art things here, you can't help but feel like an artist.
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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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