ALFIES ANTIQUES MARKET

13-25 Church Street, NW8 8DT
Tube: Marylebone / Edgware Road
www.alfiesantiques.com
Twitter: @AlfiesAntiques
Insta: alfiesantiques
Open: Tuesday-Saturday 10am-6pm

Alfies is situated in the midst of Church Street Market and acts as a fascinating contrast with its more down-to-earth neighbour. Within this lofty five storey Edwardian building there are over 70 dealers selling jewellery, furniture, costume and retro clothing, lighting, tableware, objets d’art, paintings, clocks and books. There are some great items of furniture to inspire a retro revamp from Art Deco chairs to large angle-poise lamps, but you’ll need fairly deep pockets to get your hands such authentic collectables.

If such things are a little beyond your budget there are plenty of traders dealing in attractive but less collectable items with lower price tags. Among these are several good costume jewellery dealers with lots of appealing goodies to sift through for just a few quid.

Several art dealers ply their trade here, but I was particularly drawn to the poster dealer with huge French advertising posters of the 1920s and 30s adorning his walls. A large poster was several hundred pounds, but Gallic style is an expensive commodity.

Alfies certainly has a good deal of charm. The dealers are friendly, knowledgeable and occasionally eccentric, the building is huge with numerous staircases and various levels within each storey and there is even an iron staircase with glass roof and a small water feature on the ground floor. Another good thing about Alfies is its diversity with lots of 20th century items as well as the more traditional antiques for which it is better known. Alfies has an excellent roof top café which does a selection of Mediterranean food as well as established British favourites and has a fantastic outdoor terrace.

This is a feature taken from our forthcoming book:
London's Markets 
by Andrew Kershman