Brent Cross Shopping Centre (Brent Cross Shopping Centre)

Member Name: Whizz11

Product:	Brent Cross Shopping Centre
Date:	11/11/09 (114 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Nice shops, free parking

Disadvantages: Small, not a massive selection of shops

Brent Cross shopping Centre is conveniently located in London right off the North Circular road. You could say this is inconvenient for some as when the traffic is really bad it's very hard to get out of this shopping centre quickly and easily. Having said that it's easy to get to and offers a good range of shops.

I tend to visit here once a month when I am in the area. The first nice thing about this shopping centre is that it offers free parking which is somewhat of a rarity nowadays in big shopping centres. This encourages people to go in my opinion and also does not make them cut their shopping short when they have to dash back to the car because the time is up on their parking ticket. The parking structure is a multi-storey car park although there are spots outside too. Apparently there are 8,000 free spots and I have never had a problem finding one which is nice.

Brent Cross shopping centre was opened in 1976 which makes it quite old in terms of other shopping centres around the country. I would say it definitely shows its age, it's not tatty or worn down but it is fairly basic in my opinion and just build in a fairly boring way with two rows of shops, one on top of each other and then two rows either side at the end.

It is fairly small, definitely a lot smaller than say Bluewater or Milton Keynes for example but sometimes this is nice too, to just be able to get round all the shops in a morning or afternoon and not be swamped with too many shops to choose from.

The two main department stores here are Fenwicks and John Lewis which are both two-storeys. The John Lewis is nice but I am not too impressed with the Fenwicks. I don't really like Fenwicks too much as a department store anyway but this one is quite small and doesn't have too much in my opinion.

There are a few places to eat here but no massive food court like other shopping centres although there is a section upstairs with a collection of restaurants including a Wagamama's, a bagel restaurant, a grill and a sandwich restaurant. They don't have too much seating here either, each restaurant has it's own seating area and there is no communal seating area. This is a shame as sometimes you want to eat something different from what your shopping partners are eating and food courts make this possible. There is also a Starbucks and a Costa Coffee for afternoon coffee breaks. These are located at either end of the rows and are more like a little outside café than an actual stand alone shop but they serve good coffee so again this is all that matters.

They have a good range of shops at Brent Cross and you can pretty much cover every type of item you are looking for with the range of shops they have, electricals, sports, music, clothing, shoes, housewares etc. They say on their website that they have 120 stylish shops, cafes and restaurants, including John Lewis and Fenwick. For the women there is M&S, H&M, Karen Millen and a nice big Monsoon to name but a few. The men come off a bit worse, but then don't they always in terms of shops. For them they have a choice of TopMan, Hugo Boss, Cecil Gee and Suits You. Hollister is a new shop that has just opened there. It's related to Abercrombie and Fitch but is a little bit cheaper than them, selling the same type of American, surfer clothes. It's worth a look inside if just for the cool décor and lots of surf memorabilia.

Opening hours at the centre are as follows and for more information I suggest visiting their website at http://www.brentcross.co.uk/
Monday - Friday: 10am - 8pm
Saturday: 9am - 7pm
Sunday: 12noon - 6pm

Summary: Brent Cross Shopping Centre