There’s a pocket of London that Londoners have heard of, but never glimpsed. Like the Shire to Tolkein’s Middle-Earth, it’s a place somewhat removed from the goings-on in the rest of the area, and beloved by its inhabitants. A place where the Kinks and Eurythmics recorded albums, where Bob Dylan popped in for coffee, and where Steven King was inspired to pen a short horror tale, based on its unsettling parkland surrounds. That place, is Crouch End.
I’d been ”challenged’ to go there by my ex-journo colleague Michelle as part of the Carrier Pigeon Does London adventures…she once lived in London, and loved nothing more than to trawl the shops in Crouch End Broadway for interesting finds. So on this Saturday morning Sammy and I make the two-trains-and-a-bus trip to experience N8 for ourselves.
Crouch End sprouted up as a hamlet on the old medieval route from London to the north, and though it’s been swallowed up by London’s insatiable sprawl since, there remains a leisurely sticksville feel about the place. Blue rinse grannies share the pavement with buggy-pushing mums and low-profile creatives who earn a decent crust; there’s not a smug hipster, trust-fund princess or tommy tourist in sight.
Perusing the Victorian-era shopfronts, we discover that Crouch End specialises in independent retailers, like little pastry houses, unfussy bookshops and boutiques run by young locals, and butchers selling pheasants, grouse and other birds you read about in storybooks. The Chinese import shops and fast food chains are here too, but they’re inoffensively spaced out between Indian eateries, funeral parlours and little design stores, due perhaps to local resistance.
For brunch we stop into Hot Pepper Jelly Cafe, a cute little spot dedicated to slathering the spicy Caribbean accompaniment on most of its culinary creations. We snaffle the front window table and select the toasted sandwich with peanut butter, bacon, chunks of smoked mozzarella and hot pepper jelly. Sure it’s pure fertiliser for the thighs, but I’d make the long trip to Crouch End every weekend for that wow-in-my-mouth experience, no question.
The best thing about Crouch End though – in my opinion – is the charity stores. Untouched by east-side rockers and west-side fashionistas, these op-shops are prime for the hunting. In no time Sammy finds a great little book on baking (hummingbird cake please!), and I pick out two dresses and a black leather Balenciaga bag of questionable authenticity, all for £43.
Back on the bus, we decide that we’re quite fond of Crouch End. It’s a place of grubby charm – a place that’s happy in its middle-class skin – and well worth an old-fashioned poke around for Londoners at a loose end.
Crouch End Broadway
Nearest Tube Station: Finsbury Park (then catch the W7 bus northbound)
Gretel Hunnerup is convinced that in a past life she was a carrier pigeon, such is her love of taking fanciful flights and posting little stories about her discoveries to her independent online pigeon hole: www.thecarrierpigeonpost.com.
The Australian sticky beak now writes about the little-known delights that make London hum…stuff that wouldn’t make the papers, like quirky establishments, not-for-tourists pursuits, and ordinary folks doing surprising things.
A trained journalist with six years travel and lifestyle writing for print and web, Gretel has taken a new post heading up internal communications for STA Travel’s Northern Europe and Africa Division, geared for maximum on-the-road reportage. Oh and she’s a sucker for documentaries, dress-up parties and dolmades.
