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A good or even decent high street.


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Anyone like to nominate a good or even half decent high street out there?

Think I would like to put Claygate in Surrey in to open the batting. Far better than the bigger and nearer Cobham, Esher and Weybridge...

Pretty impressive imho for an ( albeit wealthy ) village.

There is an independent butcher, baker, deli with cafe, fruit and veg shop and an award winning fishmongers and not a satansburys or God forbid a tesco in sight.

No cheese shop but hey-ho still pretty good.

Can anyone recommend any others?

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Didsbury - southern suburb of Manchester.

Decent butcher, fishmonger, very good cheese shop. deli with caff, wine merchant; independent off-licence with excellent beer selection; couple of greengrocers (albeit not brilliant), couple of decent eateries alongside the chains; a few "proper" pubs (including one doing a gut-busting ploughmans cheese/pate/pie lunch.

Oh, and a first floor place understood to be a brothel (not even making the pretence of being a massage parlour).

What more could a community want?

John Hartley

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I'm quite taken with my newly adopted home town of Frome actually - there is Cheap Street with a grocer, deli, cheese shop, health food shop, old fashioned sweet shop and a baker - then Catherine Street with some quirkly little vintage shops (not vintage food!) and some cafes as well as the best butcher around.

I managed to do all my Christmas shopping there last year - didn't spend any money in high street conglomerate type shops. Felt most chuffed!

Sarah

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Interesting question. Though not all on the same street, Lancaster still has a decent fishmonger, several excellent butchers, green-grocers, a thriving Wednesday market and of course the Port of Lancaster smoke house. Only possible due to the fact there's only one supermarket here (Sainsburys). I hope and pray it stays that way. There's not many places I visit that seem to have much in the way of an artisanal food culture.

Radio 4's the Food Programme covered the Ribble Valley food trail, which aims to unify and bring to the fore a group of local food and drink distributors. Seems the best way to eat well in Cumbria too; box schemes. The highstreet is dead.

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For christ sake take this discussion offline and keep it underground, don't you know tescos, Boots, Starbucks, Next and Top Shop have people who monitor channels like this to see if there are any places they have missed in their quest to make every high street in the country the same as every other one

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Greenwich

Has “The Creaky Shed” - a better than decent greengrocer - right next to “Drings Butchers” – a proper butchers - which is cheek by jowl with “The Cheeseboard” (www.cheese-board.co.uk), which is in turn round the corner from The Fishmonger (www.thefishmongerltd.com) all in the space of about thirty yards. Known locally as “The awesome foursome”.

Of course, the real treat is about half a mile away on the other side of Greenwich at Theatre of Wine (www.theatreofwine.com) – about as good a local wine merchants as you could ever hope to stumble upon.

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