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Money and Shopping in Southampton
Money and Shopping in Southampton
Southampton sells itself as the shopping capital of the South Coast and the West Quay shopping centre does nothing to dispel you of that opinion. John Lewis and Marks And Spencer are the major draws, but there are 97 other shops happy to separate you from your hard-earned.
The Bargate shopping centre appeals to a younger clientele than West Quay, providing fashion retailers, computer game stores, Pijin BMX shop and an excellent milkshake shop.
The Mall (formerly Marlands) is an even more generic shopping centre, if such a thing were possible, although the rent is lower than West Quay and hence the retailers are a little less salubrious.
For more generic shopping, Above Bar Street is the main pedestrial thoroughfare joining the shopping centres to each other therefore has even more retailers, large and small, just don't expect to be surprised that the same stores as are on most British high streets have made this their home.
The more discerning shopper can head towards East Street which is the home of 'Speciality Shopping' (it even says so on the street sign) but even this has very little to surpise a shopper on the hunt for a more interesting shopping experience.
Just don't confuse it with East Street Shopping Centre which is apparently the first shopping centre in Southampton, although it has been left behind by the developments on Above Bar Street and is now tucked away too far from the madding crowd and is looking more than a little tired (and also fast becoming the haunt of teenage groups from the nearby estate).
Above Bar Street is also the home of the German Market which runs in December, and the area around the Bargate has the Farmer's Market on the second Saturday of each month.
Southampton's planners have indicated that they don't want to encourage out-of-town shopping, but that hasn't stopped Eastleigh developing Hedge End Retail Park with its collection of typical out-of-town shops at junction 7 of the M27.
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Southampton Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.