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BARNES ...
Although
Barnes feels quite grown up, it does in fact have a large community of
young families. There is a definite villagey feel and offers a good selection
of shops and facilities in a residential setting. The river, the pond
and the green give the impression of being in the countryside, but it
really isn’t far from central London. The shops (boutiques rather
than chains) are along Castlenau, Church Road, Barnes High Street and
White Hart Lane, while schools abound on Lonsdale Road. The lack of a
tube is off-putting, but there are good train and bus links, and a lot
of cyclists. What there is an abundance of is gift shops – if you
want to buy birthday cards, party invitations or children’s presents,
you really couldn’t be in a better place.
Food shops
Essentials
Interesting extras
Shopping for kids
Health & Beauty
Playgrounds
Nurseries
Prep & primary schools
Activities for children
Cafés
Pubs, Bars & Restaurants
Property
Food Shops
There is a brilliant Farmers’ Market on Saturday mornings at Essex
House, up by the pond. It can be tricky to park, but if you get close,
you could do your weekly food-shop here. Lovely veg, meat, fish, cheese,
pies, bread and a big bag of child-sized apples for £1. Also, the
usual enterprising stalls cooking sausages and bacon sandwiches which
are hard to resist.
Sonny’s deli and café on Church Street is tiny but packed with goodies (020 8741 8451).
Two Peas in a Pod on Church Road (020 8748 0232) is a little, deliciously fresh greengrocer where you can have a monthly account and send the children to pick up some forgotten items. They will also deliver locally.
There is good local food shopping to be done on the High Street:
J Seal Butchers
Tel 020 8876 5118
Alexander and Knight
Tel 020 8876 1297
No-frills fishmonger
The Real Cheese Shop
Tel 020 8878 6676)
Stretches your olfactory senses!
Gusto & Relish
White Hart Lane
Tel 020 8878 2005
A lovely, light, open deli, which is great for cakes at the weekend and
regular deli supplies all the time.
For a supermarket, most locals go to Waitrose
in East Sheen (020 8878 4792) or Putney (020 8246 6848), or to Sainsbury’s
on the way into Richmond.
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Essentials
The Hardware Store (020 8392 0690) on the High
Street incorporates a local Post Office (020
8876 5238).
There are several chemists:
Locals’ favourites include R X Barnes and Co
(020 8748 1774) on Church Road and Round the Clock
(020 8748 9695) up by the Green.
Natson’s Newsagents on Church Road (020 8748 5193) is a cut above your average paper shop – very bright inside with a good selection of cards and wrapping paper at the back; there is also a Londis and a Martins.
Oddbins (020 8748 4400) on Church Road for grab-a-bottle, or try the winner of the London Wine Merchant of the Year for five consecutive years, Lea and Sandeman, on the High Street (020 8878 8643).
Jasmine Dry Cleaning on Church Road (020 8741 4249) is favoured among the many on offer; they also repair shoes.
There are a couple of florists, but the locals’ favourite is the stall next to the Sun Inn, opposite the pond, where they can either do lovely hand-tied bunches, or sell you a wrapped-up armful to take straight home.
Channel Films.com is the video shop on Castlenau,
with a small but good selection of DVDs and videos to rent (020 8741 5708).
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Interesting Extras
The Blue Door (020 8748 9785) specializes in
scandinavian painted furniture, fabrics, baskets, cushions, children’s
and outdoor furniture. It is in a lovely courtyard off Church Road with
lots of space.
For your next party, tucked into the same courtyard, is Botticelli (020 8741 4230), a catering service which also sells fantastic quiches and take away food at the weekends and Sally Clarke’s bread on Saturdays.
New
Grafton Gallery on the corner of the Green (020 8748 8850)
is a bright space with 
regularly
changing shows by both well-established and up-and-coming artists. Current
shows can be viewed on their website.
Why not commission a portrait of your husband/wife/lover or children for
Christmas? You can choose between fifteen artists and whether you want
oil, sculpture or drawing. Prices start from £750 (you can claim
a 5% discount by taking along this copy of angels & urchins). An exhibition
entitled Smaller Paintings for Christmas and the New Year opens on 4 December
2003 with prices from £550.
The best of the gift shops are:
Shine on Church Road (020 8563 9991), with its good selection of cards, Cath Kidston goodies and Bagpuss’s musical mice. There were some lovely French children’s plates in Bradford’s on the High Street (020 8876 7124).
Beaumonts is an old-fashioned, independent bookseller on Church Road (020 8741 0786). It sells great party invitations and they can order any book for you. The children’s section is downstairs and not large, but well displayed.
White Hart Lane offers a selection of antique shops (as well as a great deli, see food shops section).
Go under Barnes Bridge and turn left by Ye White Hart pub for upholsterers
The Dining Room Shop (020 8878 1020), and other
good pottering places.
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Shopping for Children
In Step on Church Road stocks Start Rite and
is the obvious choice for every mother
(020 8741 4114).
Bug Circus on Castlenau (020 8741 4244) is a one-stop children’s shop. Here you can buy clothes, lovely wooden toys (handsome, educational and fair-trade), dressing-up clothes, party invitations, stocking/party bag fillers, birthday cards and beautiful dolls‚ houses and arks. Free gift-wrapping for items over £5.
Membery’s (020 8876 8075) is a tiny little shop on the corner of the High Street selling children’s clothes (including a good selection of Petit Bateau), mobiles and soft toys.
The Farmyard Children’s Store on the
High Street sells dressing up outfits and toys, including Plan Toys (020
8878 7338).
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There are plenty of hair salons and beauty clinics here: The Peach Tree (020 8741 1254) and Secrets (020 8741 7176), the Clarins’ stockist, which marks it out for me, are almost next door to each other on Church Road. Secrets also stocks Jessica nail products and St Tropez self-tanning products – you couldn’t go wrong getting a gift voucher from here for a friend’s Christmas present.
For sports clubs: The Riverside Club (020 8987 1800) is just a walk over Barnes Bridge, or The Roehampton Club (020 8480 4200) is just the other side of the South Circular. Both offer the usual range of swimming, tennis, gym and many other activities for adults and children.
Barnes Church Hall hosts a number of different exercise
classes for adults: Check out Pilates with
Tanya (07939 238559); Tai Chi with Kieran (07989
563356); or Yoga with Susan (020 7386 9010)
or Liz (020 8241 8624).
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Playgrounds
There is a big playground with a large paddling pool
in the summer on Vine Road, but the play equipment looks in need
of investment. There is another playground by The Rocks
Lane Tennis Centre; and it is worth a cycle ride down the river
to the playground at Putney which is right by
the river, with a café from where you can see the children play.
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Nurseries
The Village Nursery is in the Methodist Church
Hall by the duckpond (020 8878 3297); St Michael’s
Nursery is in the Church Hall on Elm Bank Gardens (020 8878 0116);
The Ark Nursery is in Barnes Church Hall, on
Kitson Road (020 8741 4751).
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Prep and Primary Schools
For state schools, try Barnes Primary School (020 8876 7358) or
St Osmund’s Catholic Primary (020 8748
3582)
For single-sex pre-prep schools, you must travel out of the area - Kew, Richmond and Putney aren’t far and have lots to offer.
Along Lonsdale Road there is a selection of schools: The
Harrodian School (020 8748 6117) is co-ed, from 4–18. Colet
Court is the prep for St Paul’s Boys School, and takes boys
from 7-13 (020 8748 3461). Svenska Skolan Swedish School
(020 8741 1751) – if you are Swedish and live in Barnes, you are
in luck.
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Activities for Children
The
Duck Pond has to be top of this list. Just be sure not to topple
in – it is very open and could be all too tempting for little ones.
There are also lovely walks along the river – you can do a loop
between Barnes and Hammersmith Bridges with a pushchair on a sunny afternoon.
The fabulous Wetland Centre (020 8409 4400) is a great resource for locals and worth travelling to. It is a huge site, full of birds from all over the world. There is a café with lots of highchairs and delicious food and an indoor visitors’ centre if you get caught in the rain. Tours to feed the birds and pond-dipping are very popular with our children. If you like it, it is worth joining for a year (reduced rate for those living nearby).
The Barn Elm Sports Centre and Boat House (020 8876 7685) – the site includes the playing fields at the bottom of Castlenau where you always see something going on. Schools use the grounds, but you can sign up for courses for children in rowing, archery, football, tennis and cricket (depending on the season).
Rocks Lane Tennis Centre (020 8876 8330) offers tennis and football clubs on Saturday mornings and after-school and holiday courses.
The Barnes Sports Club on Lonsdale Road (020 8748 6220).
Castlenau Library is halfway down from the Bridge (8748 3837). It is a part-time library, open on Tuesday from 10am–1pm, on Wednesday and Friday from 2-6pm and on Saturday from 10am–1pm and from 2–6pm.
There is a lot going on at Barnes Church Hall on
Kitson Road:
Tumble Tots (020 8994 8818), a
Mother and Toddler Group (020 8878 7224) and Penny
Poppins Paint and Create classes for pre-schoolers (020 8741 8016)
for a taster. See the noticeboard outside the hall for more details.
Mrs Herbert’s Music Class, held at Mrs Herbert’s home on Melville Road, is the favourite music session for pre-schoolers (020 8395 9195).
Brush and Bisque-it (020 8563 1515) is a small
pottery painting shop, so might not be ideal with a big group of children,
but with one or two would be lovely on a rainy afternoon (as long as everyone
else in Barnes hasn’t had the same idea).
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Cafés
Petit Delice
Church Road
Tel 020 8741 3860
For people-watching on the pavement
Tatie Danielle
Church Road
Tel 020 8563 8223
Lovely enclosed garden at the back
If you like to know exactly what you are getting, there is a large
Caffe Nero on the High Street (020 8876 8808).
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Pubs, Bars and Restaurants
The Sun Inn
Opposite the pond
Tel 020 8876 5256
Very popular, with snazzier-than-usual pub food (crayfish sandwiches and
tom yum prawns) and scrubbed tables.
Ye White Hart
At the top of White Hart Lane
Tel 020 8876 5177
An old-fashioned Young’s pub with a narrow balcony which hangs right
over the river.
The Coach and Horses
High Street
Tel 020 8876 2695
Good summer barbecue food.
Sonny’s
Church Road
Tel 020 8741 8451
Very popular and worth travelling to the area for – although portions
are on the small side. At lunch, choose between the café and the
restaurant; in the evening they are rolled into one. There is a small
deli at the front of the café. Good menu, reasonably priced, in
a light, faintly Scandinavian setting (perhaps inspired by the Blue Door
down the road).
Annie’s
White Hart Lane
Tel 020 8878 2020
The sister restaurant of Annie’s in Strand on the Green, and is
equally opulent in design. There is a tasty menu and a children’s
menu all day.
Riva
Tel 020 8748 0434
The well-known and loved Italian on the corner of Church Road and Castlenau
The Depot
Tel 020 8878 9462
By the river just past White Hart Lane, worth checking out for an informal,
lively evening. Caesar salad and chargrilled tuna kind of fare
For safe bets with the children:
Pizza Express on the High Street (020 8878 1184), or Ask
(020 8392 6429), which overlooks the duck pond. Tootsies
is at the bottom of Castlenau (020 8748 3630), or for something a bit
different, Bar Estilo on Rocks Lane (020 8878
2122) is a tapas bar that offers free meals for children when accompanied
by dining adults.
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Property
Estate Agents
FPD Savills 8939 6900
Barnard Marcus 8748 2641
Vanstons 8563 8333
Chesterton Residential 8748 8833
House Prices
Two-bedroom flats from £250,000
Three-bedroom houses from £500,000
Five-bedroom houses from £1,000,000
Castlenau villa backing on to the Wetland Centre – up to £2.5m
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First published in angels and urchins, Christmas 2003