London through its charity shops #15: Battersea, SW11

I've covered part of Battersea before in my 'round Clapham Junction charity shop post (an area I would actually call Clapham Junction, though residents would no doubt prefer to call it Battersea). This is a quick post to cover Battersea Park Road, about a 10-15 walk from Clapham Junction.

There are three charity shops along Battersea Park Road, all pretty close to each other and near to Battersea Park. If you're in the area early Sunday afternoon, the Battersea car boot sale is on at 1:30pm in Battersea Park school and worth a rummage.

Oasis Wandsworth, at No. 547 Battersea Park Road, is huge, with an abundance of jigsaws, videos, CDs, records, books and clothes. In other words, it has everything one needs. However, it has been under investigation – the Wandsworth Guardian revealed it might not actually be a charity shop at all, but rather a for-profit organisation masquerading as one. Some doors along is Paws, a modest but quite interesting shop with friendly staff. On the other side of the road, near the crossroads with Battersea Bridge Road, is an average FARA, with an uninspiring selection of books, CDs and bric-a-brac, and quite a few boxes of records. I've never got anything there. The clothes section looks quite good though.