Shopping and eating in Camberwell

Written by Peter | Filed under Eating & Drinking, General, Shopping

Saturday morning was pretty sunny but we had a barbecue to attend that evening and needed to buy a present for the birthday girl. Thinking of a book or a print, we took a walk down Love Walk and headed to Great Expectations (43, Denmark Hill), the gallery and framing shop.

They front of the shop sells prints, frames and cards, while the rear (including the cellar) is a gallery. Has to be said, there wasn’t a great selection of either frames or prints on show; at least, not as many as I might have thought. Plenty of cards, however, and the gallery at the rear had a good selection of traditional paintings on canvas and also a few sculptures. I get the feeling that the framing only makes a small part of their business now, so the idea of a print went out of the window.

Instead we walked down to Wordsworth Books (Butterfly Walk) and browsed in there for a while. As an independent bookshop, this is obviously never going to be able to compete with the financial clout of the big chains; instead it concentrates on new releases and gift books, the obvious move as there’s no other bookshop in Camberwell to compete with it. The shop takes two units in Butterfly Walk so doesn’t feel cramped, and we found a gift very easily.

Purchase made, we went to Seymour Bros (2, Grove Lane) for lunch. The last time I went here it was a little sandwich shop with about four tables; it’s now expanded into the shop next door and, more crucially, into the back yard.

This is an absolute treasure; a small, jumbled courtyard with grapes hanging down from the vines which grow overhead, it feels more like you’re eating in a small cafe in the Italian countryside than in Zone 2 of London. There isn’t a massive amount of choice other than sandwiches (although they do an all-day breakfast at the weekends, but £10.50 all-in is a bit steep), but the sandwiches were really tasty and good value. Eating them under the green vines was further value still.