Martin’s Shoe Store

As much as I enjoy strolling through its’ nafftastic mall, I’m always surprised to come across any shop of actual use in London Court. I was absolutely shocked to find a kick arse shoe shop had been hiding here all these years. Martin’s stocks a wide range of shoes mostly targeted at women, but they also have a rather splendid range of Doc Martens boots in a wide selection of styles. The more left field colours and fabrics have been hard to track down since the height of their popularity in the 90’s, so I was quite excited to pick some up. Unfortunately, my clown-​sized twelve and a half feet were a bit of an issue; the store stocks mostly smaller sizes and had to order mine in, which turned out not to be possible without a lengthy wait, so I ended up passing. That being said, the customer service was great and I’d definitely recommend stopping in here if you have smaller (or female) feet.

Doc Martin’s. .. an exploration in an oversized shoe box.
This is by far the smallest Doc Martins shop I have ever been to. As you walk into this shop you are confronted with the back wall, about 2 metres infront of you– this was a little unsettling for me as I usually stride into a shop and work backwards, but when met so abruptly, I resolved to change tactics and work from left to right. Luckily the shop assistant was in the back room so my near collision went unseen. When she did come out I was happily browsing at the usual– boots with various signature designs. The range isn’t huge but pretty much everything of display is show cased– heels, boots and sandles are the flavour of this store. The assistant was helpful and dropped a pearl (of wisdom) that when converting your shoe size to Docs (or any UK size) b you should drop 2 sizes– sharing the wealth of knowledge scores highly with me. I browsed longer than intended and warmed to the quaint store, feeling as though I had my own personal walk in wardrobe decked out with a fitter. It was a novel experience, reminding me of the humble beginnings the manufacturer started with, who has since stamped an authoritive trade mark in the shoe world.
Considering the limited space, it has been used well and while the shoes are great quality the prices are high so to shop up BIG here it would be advisable to have the mind set– «Can you really put a price on happiness???»