Welcome to Northcote Road

(Aileen)
Northcote Rd lies about ¼ mile due west of our flat, is about ½ mile long, and is a street we frequent almost ritualitisically every time we happen to be in town. I’ve mentioned it in some of my previous blogs, and thought it deserved a proper introduction.

Northcote Rd is the type of street that defines a neighbourhood. When we bought our flat, one of the factors we considered was it’s proximity to the said road. The road is quite modest, around 10 blocks long. But along the street, about 6 of 10 blocks are lined with small food stalls selling a variety of goods and a series of small food shops that are true treasures of the neighbourhood. On a typical Saturday morning, you might find us at one of the following stops:

Stop 1 – Veggie stand.
Manned by 2 lovely ladies and occasionally, one of their grumbling (but still sweet) sons (?). Offers a wide variety of vegetables. Ed loves the French salad greens. I love the wild mushrooms (available only during mushroom season) they keep tucked away in one of the back shelves. When I ask to buy some, they never fail to look at me incredulously with raised eyebrow and say “Are you sure? They’re £30 a kilo”. To which I reply “Yes, that’s fine”. The handful I get never exceeds £4 or £5 (for mushrooms are feather light!). And the exchange is surely to be repeated the following week when I get another handful of wild mushrooms.

Stop 2 – Dove butcher.
Established in 1879, Dove butcher has for generations been, and hopefully will continue to be a mainstay of Northcote Rd. They are purveyors of fine organic British meat – Scotch beef, Welsh lamb, and English pork. All marvellously tasty stuff. If you live in the neighbourhood and frequent Dove's enough, you may be bestowed the honour of being addressed as “Guvner” by one of the butchers (a title Ed aspires to I might add).


Stop 3 – Bread stand. The stand offers a cornucopia of breads, pastries and other baked goodies. We usually pick up a French baguette to eat with the cheese we pick up at Hamish Johnston, which quite conveniently sits right opposite the bread stand.


Stop 4 – Hamish Johnston cheese shop. Since moving to Europe we’ve developed the taste for cheese, especially the stinky, foot smelling soft variety. Much of this new found obsession with cheese can be directly attributed to Hamish Johnston, which always has on offer a myriad of cheese options – cows cheese, goats cheese, buffalo cheese, French, Italian, Swiss, English, Irish, some with such far fetched names as “Stinking Bishop” or “Head of the Hundreds”. On a typical Saturday we’ll usually get a good sized chunk of Brie de Meaux (our staple cheese), plus some other soft variety, and a hard variety. Also on offer are great olives, plus other gourmet staples such as olive oil.

Stop 5 – Fishmonger. Right next to Hamish Johnston, on a cross street sits our fishmonger. This corner is their new home, having had to vacate their original shop dwelling several blocks north about 5 months ago. In the age of uber-supermarkets, fishmongers (along with butchers) are a dying breed, so we feel extremely fortunate to have our fishmonger still.

Stop 6 – Philglas & Swiggot. Our last stop on a Northcote shopping trip is always Philglas & Swiggot, an independent wine merchant. It’s the kind of wine shop I love – with a very personal selection of wines, small selections of each wine variety, but a wide selection of varieties. Each wine region is well represented. Many of the wines on the shelves will have tasting notes, which makes it enjoyable to peruse the shelves (I can spend hours in here) and fun to try new wines.

The picture is not all rosy though. As with many streets with any semblance of character in the UK, Northcote Road is under constant threat of becoming a cookie cutter street overridden with chain establishments. As property prices continue to rise in the neighbourhood (in large part probably due to the demand to be near Northcote Rd), merchants on the street increasingly face being priced out of the market and unable to survive the rents. Recent closures are the fishmonger (who now operates out of a portable stand) and Kelly’s Organic Food Store. Since we moved in, we’ve also heard about Hamish Johnston being under threat of closure due to high rents. It’s a terrible vicious cycle. Demand to be near the road and its establishment leads to increased property prices. In turn, increased property prices lead to closures of the very type of establishment people paid to be near. If things continue to progress in this way, in many respects, its farewell we should be bidding from Northcote Rd rather than welcome.

Pic: Fat Face (an unspiring chain clothing store which sits where our fishmonger used to be) - be sure to hiss as you walk by!