Everything for everyone (Churchill Square Shopping Centre)

Member Name: alistair

Product:	Churchill Square Shopping Centre
Date:	24/12/00 (680 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Every type of shop you could ever wish for

Disadvantages: Bad news if you have shopping phobia

Brighton has to have one of the South's premier shopping experiences. There are so many different shops that you cant fail to find what you want.
(Better even than London which has every conceivable shop but is so enormous and spread out that you would need several days to cover the same range.)

I personally hate shopping and can tolerate Brighton by the fact that I know where to go to get exactly what I want and then escape. I hope the following is of some assistance if any readers are considering a visit:

Churchill Square shopping centre. A recently completed indoor shopping centre on several floors with the usual cafes, fountains, glass escalators etc. Good for shopping out of the winters gloom and benefits from 2000 parking spaces in the adjacent multi storey. To find this head for the sea front, turn right at Brighton Pier and right either just before the cinema complex for Churchill 1 or just past The Grand Hotel for Churchill 2.
Shops include a large Debenhams on 3 floors, a large Virgin records on 2 floors, BHS, Habitat, Thorntons (for that casual chocolate purchase), a Disney store (for the young or young at heart) and a great number of fashion, shoe, jewelery, and everything else you could imagine type shops.

Western Road. The former main shopping road before the Churchill Square was reborn. This is juist outside the above and includes shops like HMV, M&S, Top Man/Shop, and a large number of the usual High Street stores.

South Laines. These are part of the fun area for shopping in Brighton. This area used to be the fishing village part of Brighton several hundred years ago (when Brighton was just that). The buildings are now all shops, restaurants, bars, clubs, and pubs, all seperated and linked by a network of alleys (lanes) largely inaccessable by any sort of vehicle. This is where you are more likely to find your specialist and high-end fashion shops and boutiques with commensurate prices. Good for the od
d purchase before meeting a few friends in a Tapas bar etc. Parking for about 12 cars in total (IE forget bringing your motor, leave it in the Churchill Square and walk East - downhill)

Castle Square. An open area just at the bottom of the South Laines and a personal favourite as it has several of the shops found on Western Road and Churchill Square. Castle Square also has a great cookshop (Farnsworths), has a fair sized pub The Sussex, where one can go to recover from all the shopping, and has an open area where you can enjoy a great number of live musicians and performers which collect here during warmer and drier weather.

North Laines. Wider roads than the South Laines but still dont bother with your car. There is an NCP car park nearby which is located off the Steyne (turn right just before the Pavillion (cream coloured building with onion domes) and follow sign posts). Shops here good for ethnic type furniture, student type fare, stuff for youths, etc. and is quite "hip and trendy" in a slightly more scruffy way.

St. James Road and St. Georges Road, Kemptown.These start just East of the Steyne (East of Castle Square) with St. James, and have a Safeways, several cafes and bars, hairdressers, a Chinese Medicine "provider" (not sure if this can really be described as a shop), several large second hand book shops. Heading further East into Kemptown St. James becomes St. Georges Road with its recently recreated Fishmarket Square which has a bakers, two delicatessen shops, a shoe shop with a difference (makes hand made shoes fitted for your feet and to your exact specification), a great wet fishmonger (bit of a surprise that given the name of the square), and a shop called Wallace Macfarlane which is great for presents, and sells the most amazing and enormous bars of aromatic Portugese soap, a bookshop, restaurant, large pub (for trendy student types - The Polar) and several smaller pubs including The Hand in Hand which
brews its own reak ales (Including a potent brew called Staggering in the Dark)- more like "Blind Walk Home!!"

Marina. Further East along the sea front is the Marina with a large Asda, a few boutique type shops, a couple of very cheap clothing emporiums (T shirts £2, trainers £4 etc.) several restaurants, a chandelers, and a great shop for luggage and bags etc. called the Luggage Factory.

London Road. Heading North from the centre of Brighton, London Road is another shopping area which includes some specialist shops Ritcher Sounds, Tiny Computers, a huge Coop department store, a Sainsburys, and a range of other shops and a Macdonalds.

Heading West there are two main shopping roads to the West of Western Road in Hove again with bars and a great range of shops.

All of the above only give a slight taster to what is available (as to name every shop would take an aeon) and if you haven't been before or for some time and are able to, give it a visit.
For those of you who hate shopping there are many pubs and bars to chill out in while your respective partners contine their search for the elusive "it".

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