London through its charity shops #6: Fulham

On the North End Road with its vibrant fruit & veg markets, ethnic grocers and cheap household goods shops are a few charity shops. Cancer Research is small; The British Heart Foundation has lots of cheap CDs, books and DVDs. A little further along is a spacious FARA, split over two floors.

On the Fulham Road, walking from Fulham Broadway towards Bishops Park, things go unsurprisingly upmarket. Except the Teddy Bear Children Support which looked like it had just opened – as it stood, it was rubbish, with stuff on the floor and very little order. It might be better now*. There's a very nice MIND with cheap £1 CDs. Trinity Hospice was also very nice. FARA Kids we didn't bother with. Geranium Shops for the Blind was likewise very nice, and clean, but pricey. FARA was good, promising, but didn't quite deliver. Lots of pictures and frames.

There's only one charity shop on the Fulham Palace Road, the catchily-titled Youth Development Summer Camp Project Charity Shop. It's like a jumble sale (in a good way). Lots of records but impossible to get to them because of all the clutter (the pleasant American who worked there said he'd sort them out for me for the next time I was there).

Barngains of the Day: nowt, nada, nothing. That's the way it goes some days.

UPDATE 5/9/11
A few minutes walk from Fulham Broadway tube a swanky YMCA charity shop has opened, at 611 Fulham Road. Spacious, clean and reasonably priced with helpful staff.

Walking up Fulham Road the opposite way, towards South Kensington, there's a nice little Octavia, just opposite Cineworld. I'd never noticed it before.

*It's actually vanished.