On our last trip to visit the factory shops in Northhampton, this turned out to the best of the shoe stores. Crockett and Jones' selection has shrunk since they moved to a newer, smaller room, and Barker's, while bigger, didn't impress me much. And the John Lobb shop is almost not worth visiting, as their prices have risen to astronomical levels after they were hit by the "buy and flip on Ebay" phenomenon recently.
Church's is not exactly my style (I find their shoes to be wide and even clunky looking in many cases), but I can't deny these are strong, well made classic English Goodyear-welted shoes. I found some brown suede shoes in just the shade I had been looking for. That day there was also a great bargain rack, and shoes there had been marked down twice.
A nice touch was I had set aside a pair before making a decision, and rather than drive back across town, I called from the place where we were having our pub lunch and they offered to ship my shoes to my home in London for a nominal charge. read more