Shop Local Southampton

(This article was originally written by Sarah several months ago but was held back due to the third lockdown. It has since been updated and Sarah is now glad to share it with you on the day of Southampton City Gallery’s reopening)

When I decided to write this article, I planned to include as many Southampton artists as I could. Of course the reality is that there are far too many to do that! So instead, I’ve chosen to focus on the city’s galleries and studio spaces, which provide a link to many (though not all) of Southampton’s fantastic artists. I’ve mentioned just a handful of those whose work I particularly enjoy.

If you plan to visit any of these venues then please check the current situation on opening through their websites. I’ve included accessibility information wherever possible. Part one includes the first 5 of 10 entries – part two will be posted shortly.

1. Southampton City Art Gallery

City Art Gallery is the jewel in the crown of Southampton’s art world. Housed in the beautiful art deco Civic Centre building, the gallery hosts a wide variety of curated exhibitions often including pieces from its own enviable collection. Spacious galleries leading from the light and airy main hall offer art for every taste, from Renaissance painters through to modern and lesser-known artists. I particularly enjoyed the recent exhibition, Shadows and Light, which embraced a huge range of periods and styles. Downstairs the foyer gallery hosts smaller shows, often by local artists, and occasional open exhibitions offer a chance for new and emerging artists to display their work. There’s also a community gallery showcasing work by local schools and community groups, and a full programme of events from touch-tours for the visually impaired through to talks on art history and craft workshops for adults and kids of all ages. What’s not to love?

Southampton City Art Gallery re-eopened today with a major new exhibition in association with the National Gallery, featuring pieces from Monet to Gainsborough.

Fully accessible with lift and accessible toilet.

2. a space Arts

My second pick is a bit of a cheat, as ‘a space’ offers three for the price of one. The organisation is dedicated not only to hosting and supporting local artists, but also to reviving some of the City’s neglected heritage. Just last year the organisation opened up God’s House Tower, a historic landmark dating back to the 15th century and which previously housed the Museum of Archaeology. In normal times the venue plays host to a variety of exhibitions, film screenings and events – all supported by the ground-floor cafe (I highly recommend the pastries!) and shop. The shop has moved online during COVID-19, with work available from a wide range of local artists – including two personal favourites of mine, multi-talented artist Dave Hubble and designer Oli Knowles. 

As if God’s House Tower wasn’t enough, a space also manage Tower House, another historic building which has been repurposed as a venue for artists, writers and designers; and the Arches Studios which are housed under Itchen Bridge. Although not usually open to the public, both studios occasionally host open days which offer an opportunity to explore and meet the artists. The organisation offers comprehensive support for artist development and creates and delivers various public art projects, using local talent and suppliers where they can. 

aspace arts also collaborates with Zest Collective at Hidden Wardrobe on Old Northam Road. Next time you walk by, keep an eye out for open art exhibitions in the windows.

GHT is fully accessible. Please check with a space for Tower House and Arches Studios.

3. Art Effects

Not far from the old town walls on East Street, Art Effects is a small independent framing shop that also offers a selection of prints from local artists and those further afield. The selection changes regularly, so it’s worth glancing in the window each time you walk by or better still dropping in to browse the art on display. Established in 1986, the shop also has branches in Fareham and Winchester and promises to frame anything “from works of art to boxing gloves”, according to their website. If you want true bespoke frame consultation, this is the place to go. 

Please check with the shop for accessibility information.

4. John Hansard Gallery

Previously located in a small building on the University of Southampton campus, the John Hansard opened the doors of its new central location in 2018. The modern building, in the heart of the city’s cultural quarter, hosts work from internationally-renowned contemporary artists alongside a programme of events and a well-stocked shop selling art books and gifts. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by just how much I’ve enjoyed some of the exhibitions – Haroon Mirza’s “Waves and Forms” which I visited early in 2020 was outstanding, with the artist having a local connection through study at the Winchester School of Art. The gallery website has a wealth of information about past exhibitions, along with a selection of virtual shows for those who are unable to visit during the pandemic. The current exhibition “Seaside: Photographed” runs until 23rd January, and is also available online.

Fully accessible with lift and accessible toilet.

5. October Books

Best known as Southampton’s friendly independent bookstore, October Books’ new venue – in a converted bank on Portswood high street – might not be somewhere you’d think to look for art. But look behind their well stocked ethical food store, and 2nd hand book room, and you’ll find a further community room hidden away. The community room is used to hold exhibitions from local and upcoming artists, along with occasional workshops and events. Their December programme included an artist talk, and a window display for the community winter (art) windows project. Their shop stocks a range of cards and books from local artists, many of which can also be ordered online; a current favourite is Lindsi Bluemel’s new book of watercolour paintings of Southampton pubs. October Books is a radical community organisation that really does walk the talk – so you can guarantee that the art you find there will be local and unique.

There is one step to get into the shop, the staff can provide a ramp for this. Once inside the whole of the shop and the toilet are fully accessible.

Part 1 of 2: Click here for Part 2

We have event listings again Southampton. What are you looking forward to? Let us know on our Facebook group. You can also listen to the listings on The Asylum (every Monday 1900-2100, from our Radio Player select Voice FM).

==== TUESDAY 25 MAY ====

—- Live Music —-
Acoustic Open Mic | The Dolphin, St Denys <19:30>
www.facebook.com/events/546821809817745

—- Events —-
One Year on from George Floyd’s Murder – #taketheknee | Guildhall Square <18:00>
www.facebook.com/events/301934691539329

==== THURSDAY 27 MAY ====

—- Live Music —-
Open Mic | River Studios, Totton <18:30>
www.facebook.com/events/462072228210568

—- DJs and Club Nights —-
Cherry’s Quiz Night | The London Hotel <20:00>
www.facebook.com/events/877016319742747

==== FRIDAY 28 MAY ====

—- Live Music —-
Daniel Eagle (full band / singer-songwriter, Southampton) | The Joiners <19:30>
www.facebook.com/events/313391193511627

Double Barrel (ska) | The Robin Hood, Sholing <21:00>
www.facebook.com/events/935073423975765

Stephanee Leal (as seen on The Voice, Southampton) | Ottoman Kitchen <19:30>
www.facebook.com/events/304007124592795

—- DJs and Club Nights —-
An Evening with Miss Penny | The London Hotel <12:00>
www.facebook.com/events/166384031993123

—- Shows —-
Rambert2 – Double Bill (newly formed junior dance crew) | MAST (Mayflower Studios) <19:00>
www.facebook.com/events/276413704123579

==== SATURDAY 29 MAY ====

—- Live Music —-

The Sweetchunks Band (Folk legends, Southampton) | The Stage Door <19:00>
www.facebook.com/events/505898410573078

Wyldest (Dream Pop, London) | The Joiners <19:30>
www.facebook.com/events/468303351032243

Bears in Trees (Uke Punk, London) | The 1865 <19:00>
www.facebook.com/events/2610169439310799

Ben Dlugokecki (singer-songwriter, Southampton) [covers Show] | Stein Garten Southampton <20:00>
www.facebook.com/events/273200461176393

Sam Solace | The London Hotel <20:30>
www.facebook.com/events/268613014981386

Hazard Acoustics | La Baronia <19:00>
www.facebook.com/events/487479719106519

—- DJs and Club Nights —-
So3 Collective | Heartbreakers <16:00>
www.facebook.com/events/509604756746988

Seaschells Presents Seaside Grooves | The Alexandra <14:00>
www.facebook.com/events/788126965474649

Black at Blues (breaks, beats, reggae) | Belgium and Blues <20:00>
www.facebook.com/events/159027359516781

—- Events —-
Booksigning: New Girl in Little Cove by Damhnait Monaghan | October Books <11:00>
www.facebook.com/events/1113252462501413

Beginners Silver Jewellery Workshop Using Silver Clay | Bitterne Park <10:00>
www.facebook.com/events/250933946650806

Back on Track (launch of newly restored railway carriage) | Hythe Ferry Train, Hythe <09:30>
www.facebook.com/events/504166744357293

==== SUNDAY 30 MAY ====

—- Live Music —-
Chantel McGregor (Blues Rock, Bradford) | The 1865 <19:30>
www.facebook.com/events/178967917196089

SKAbretta (reggae and ska) | Saints Pub <16:00>
www.facebook.com/events/194331448967906

Ben Dlugokecki (singer-songwriter, Southampton) | La Baronia <16:00>
www.facebook.com/events/287438019702049

—- DJs and Club Nights —-
Afternoon with Elsie Crumpet Followed by Dawn the Drag Queen | The London Hotel <12:00>
www.facebook.com/events/133835228612970

Cocktails and Karaoke | The Stage Door <18:00>
www.facebook.com/events/869447973643203

—- Shows —-

Dawn’s Ritzy Glitzy Tipsy Tea Party | The Stage Door <13:30>
www.facebook.com/events/521800919228048

Medbar’s Bank Holiday Sunday Reggae Brunch | Medbar <13:00>
www.facebook.com/events/304695747929421

Bee Social (XR) | Southampton Common <13:00>
www.facebook.com/events/336505921148443

Update (May 13): Thanks for all your responses! The survey is now closed. A massive 500 of you gave your thoughts over the last 2 days, and this will now be compiled into an open letter to the leader of the council. I will also be sharing the results here shortly.

Last week we had an election in Southampton and the Conservative group overturned a Labour majority of 12 to themselves have a majority of 1. The new administration has announced plans to shut down Go Southampton’s car-free scheme in Bedford Place, and to not go ahead with plans to divert cars from the city centre interior and onto the ring road (thus opening up space for more mini parks and active travel options).

However, it’s not a done deal – the council have promised to consult local residents and businesses. I have created a survey to collect the views of Shop Local Southampton members regarding these proposals. These decisions will of course have huge impacts on people living, making a living, and visiting, Southampton, so I think it’s important we give our thoughts.

The results of this survey, and any comments you add, will form the basis of an open letter to the new leader of Southampton City Council, Dan Fitzhenry.

I love the vast array of different foods you can try in Southampton. I fancied trying something different, and decided to order Persian food for the first time, from Melo Persian Restaurant in Swaythling.

The other food that arrived was tasty, such as BBQed vegetables in a naan, but it was the Persian noodle soup (Ash Reshteh) that made me want to write this blob entry, as it was like nothing else I’ve ever tasted before.

The predominant flavours of the soup are the spinach, greens, parsley and Persian herbs and spices. The texture is provided by the noodles and the beans. I ordered mine ‘with Kashk’, which is a type of feta-esque whey cheese, though I made the mistake of mixing it in before taking the above photo. To compensate for this I added some extra dried cheese on top, along with some Aleppo pepper (‘pul biber’, available in international food stores) and fresh lemon juice, which seemed to complement it well.

Impressively we got 2 good sized portions from the Ash Reshteh, which priced as a starter cost just £5.50. I definitely recommend giving it a go!

This week the awesome Emma Stevenson of Bundts and Buns offered to make me a Bundt cake. I had no idea what a Bundt cake was, but I like cake so I said yes. A little research later and I learnt that Bundt cakes refer to the mould they are cooked in, were invented in the US, and had roots back to north German “bund” cakes, which could in turn originate from the way the dough bundles round the pan. Emma was first introduced to them through watching Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and it seems has been under their spell ever since, setting up her own local business over lockdown.

My cake was white chocolate and lemon, a flavour that was accidently invented by Emma when she mistakenly offered it to me as a choice instead of her usual “white chocolate and raspberry”. Emma went along with the flavour combination anyway and I’m glad she did – I love lemon in a cake, and its sharpness works perfectly against the sweetness of white chocolate. I understand it’s now an officially available flavour if you want to try it. The Bundt cake itself is perfectly light and fluffy in the middle, with a bite to the outside.

Each of the segments makes for a mega portion for a hungry person, but really half of that provides a perfectly satisfactory cake hit, meaning this Bundt cake would contain between 16 servings. As it’s quite a big cake it would be perfect for celebrations, and would make a real centrepiece to a picnic. Cake prices vary from £15 to £30, and there’s the option to make your own custom Bundt.

Thanks again to Emma for introducing me to the world of Bundt cakes and bringing them to Southampton.

I can’t lie, I’m very excited about hospitality slowly re-emerging from tomorrow. I can’t wait to take in the delights of Oxford Street and Bedford Place, particularly with its new, quite literal, ‘street’ art. I think Piecaramba’s ridiculous pie and pint deal, will be high up the list, alongside The Cricketers, Smugglers, Black Phoenix, Smugglers and Beards and Boards – what a line up of locally owned awesomeness. This isn’t a sponsored post – posts are never sponsored, but I’m going to share Piecaramba’s promo image to give a flavour of what’s to come.

Over in Oxford Street, it’s great to see lots of new local businesses setting up, including Rita’s cocktail bar, Marco’s moving from by the station, and Pam Pam pizza replacing Pizza Express. Alongside existing gems such as Max’s Brasserie and Porters, it will be great to see the street buzzing again.

There are countless businesses reopening for the first time that I can’t mention them all, but I will also be visiting Bevois Valley for The Shooting Star and The Hobbit, and Shirley for Overdraft and Clockwork. I also want to cross the river to home of the smallest outdoor drinking area in the city, Olaf’s Tun. Leaving bars aside for a moment, my shoes have been getting a bit ‘holey’ recently so a trip to French’s is required.

What are you most looking forward to opening? Please share your thoughts over on our Facebook group.

And of course let’s all be supportive and friendly to all the staff in shops and hospitality – it hasn’t been an easy time for them and they are likely to be swamped with demand, alongside the responsibility to keep everyone safe. So let’s not make their job harder than it needs to be. Sometimes we’ll turn up somewhere and there won’t be space to safely accommodate us – it’s great that the business is doing well and thus will be there for us another day – let’s just move on and find somewhere quieter where they need our custom and which we can more safely visit.

Stay safe and have fun everyone. And to everyone working in the shops and hospitality, thank you.

Today I wanted to go to Rice Up Wholefoods Ltd to get some treats, but I was running a little late so needed to get there quickly. I pondered driving down, but that seemed a bit unnecessary – I could carry what I needed in a rucksack. Then I remembered that e-scooters have recently gone live in the city, and I thought I’d give them a go.

To get started on an e-scooter you need to download the Voi app, and be aware that you’ll need to wait a minute or so for your first scooter to unlock as you have to take a photo of your driving license and wait for it to be verified. After that though it’s an easy (and surprisingly quick) way to get around town, particularly on the new cycle lanes. Before you unlock a scooter you can check its vital statistics, most importantly remaining battery (though my trips only took a few percentage points off). Unlike the yellow bikes that you used to find dumped all over the city, the scooters need to be left at designated bays and a photo taken of the scooter to end the trip. There are already quite a few bays around the west of the city and more are being added, so the convenience factor should only grow with them. At present, however, there are no bays east of the river Itchen.

Though I wouldn’t recommend it as a replacement for walking or cycling for obvious reasons, they’re great to pop into town quickly if you need something from a distant shop or to admire our beautiful central parks, which are looking pretty dashing in the spring sunshine.

As part of our new transport offering, e-scooters could definitely help replace unnecessary short car journeys and make our city breath easier. As for Rice Up, they have a delicious deli counter, and I highly recommend their pasties if you’re looking things to bring to a picnic.

Today has been a big day for art in the city, with two headline stories.

The Banksy piece presented by the artist to Southampton General Hospital last year has sold for a record £14.4 million, raising the funds for NHS charities.

And looking forward to the excellent Southampton City Art Gallery reopening later in spring, the National Gallery has agreed to one of its largest ever loans to a UK gallery, including pieces by Monet and Gainsborough. Apparently the relationship between the galleries stretches back to Southampton City Art Gallery’s foundation in 1939, with the National Gallery’s director acting as an acquisition and collections advisor for the new gallery – I had no idea. The special exhibition will run from 28 May – 2 September.

With free entry and one of the most extensive art collections outside London, Southampton City Art Gallery is an attraction for the city to be proud of, and well worth a visit. When things are more open, I highly recommend an art and coffee crawl around the central art galleries, also featuring John Hansard Gallery, and of course Mettricks.

Shop Local Southampton at its heart is about encouraging and supporting our local economy of shops, artists and suppliers, and I’m struggling to think of anywhere that encompasses those values more than Bitterne Park Stores.

Many Southampton residents has come to rely on Bitterne Box Company for its weekly Covid-safe deliveries of fruit, vegetables, bread, food cupboard essentials, and – perhaps most importantly from my point of view – beer. This success has enabled the opening of a new local shop at the heart of Bitterne Park Triangle – Bitterne Park Stores.

From locally produced cheese, coffee, beer and condiments (bread coming soon), to vegan and cleaning products, Bitterne Park Stores stocks everything Bitterne Box Company is famous for – you could do the majority of a weekly shop in here, and pick up some treats at the same time. There’s also a section run by Art’el, offering paintings, figurines, jewellery and fabrics designed by local artists and rotated on a weekly basis.

Bitterne Park Stores has plenty of well regarded neighbours, a non-complete list includes ice cream café The Songbird, Italian cafe Il Picchio, G. Cotton Bakers, rideride Cycle workshop, and Darn it & Stich haberdashery. Bitterne Park Triangle is also home to Southampton’s first micropub The Butcher’s Hook, currently closed due to Covid restrictions. Add Riverside Park to the mix and Bitterne Park Triangle is one of Southampton’s great local shopping destinations. You can find Bitterne Park Stores at 25 Manor Farm Road – it’s also featured on our map of some of our favourite local shops and services in Southampton.

Southampton City Centre has certainly seen changes over the last decade, not least the transformation of Guildhall Square from a car park to a square full of culture and events.

This is about to be accelerated with plans for improved pedestrian, cycle, public transport, recreational and visitor experiences, whilst simultaneously improving the flow of traffic outside a greener city centre.

The plans will open up a new city park at Albion Place by the historic town and castle walls, create better flow between the Central Parks by reducing motor traffic on cross-park routes, and radically improve the sense of place in front of the Civic Centre. Some of the works are due to begin this year, with the majority completing in 2022.

At the same time plans are being made to erect a new statue of Sikh pilot Hardit Singh Malik, dedicated to memory of members of the city’s ethnic communities who lost their lives in wartime. It is expected that the statue, by West Midlands sculptor Luke Perry, will be erected outside the Sea City Museum in 2023.

For more information on the City Centre Transformation and to provide feedback in the consultation (ends 19 March) please see the Southampton City Council website.