The Merrion Centre in Leeds is the second largest shopping centre in the city. Although I much…read moreprefer the larger Trinity Leeds nearby, they still have a nice selection of brands here, and the location being right by the First Direct Arena is useful to hop in without much of a detour before a show. As of January 2024, it's the 41st largest shopping centre in the UK in terms of retail space at 74,100 meters squared in area. Parking is expensive, and it's shared with the arena nearby, rates start at £3.50 for one hour, but when you're parking in a city you always seem to get similar rates. The inside of the shopping centre looks ordinary pretty much like any mall which opened in the UK around the 60s/70s. It's easy enough to follow the layout, there is a large map which shows not only the shops inside the centre, but the rest of Merrion Way, including the outlets just outside including Pizza Express, Starbucks and the Co-Op, and then leading to the arena and Ibis Hotel. There is a large Morrisons supermarket located here and an Amazon Hub featuring two Amazon Lockers for deliveries/returns. There are many budget shops located here which you might not find elsewhere in the city centre including Iceland, Heron Foods and Home Bargains and one or two charity shops. 3* - OK, the shopping centre isn't somewhere you'd go out of your way to visit, luckily due to being within the city centre of a big city, you don't have too, useful if you're looking for a specific store here but otherwise it's just another reasonable addition to Leeds' shopping scene.

The Merrion Centre is one of the larger shopping centres of Leeds and as such offers a little bit…read moremore choice in shopping. One of the most obvious shops within the Merrion Centre is the huge Morrisons, and accompanying car park, which is useful for residents across the city. The range of shops includes KRCS Apple Store, Fuji Hiro, Yorkshire Linen Co., Costa Coffee, Peacocks, O2 store, Thorntons and a great deal more. At the back of the Merrion Centre there are a number of indie style shops too, which often are overlooked, but are worth going along to check out. Some of the more innovative elements of the Merrion Centre include their impressive Christmas display which each year puts a smile on the wee kid's faces as they toddle past! Currently, or at least when I last visited, there was a really intriguing and interesting art installation along the walls of the entrance adjacent to Morrisons. I noticed that there were peep holes in the wall and odd lights, and on further investigation noticed that if you looked through the eye holes there were video projections, displays and models on show! It was really very cool. All in all, Merrion is a pretty decent place to shop. Certainly, it has enough of a range of stores to satisfy most people's tastes, needs and desires.

Dante and Co does not look out of place in the strange place that is the Merrion Market. It sells a…read moresmall amount of antiques (or is it just junk, its hard to tell) but mostly old medals, coins and stamps. It is a haphazard place with bold hand-written signs proclaiming that they will also buy these things from you, for cash. It was fascinating to see a half crown from 1910, and that it was now being sold for £15. If the idea of buying money in this way is not a strange enough concept, there is also a small fancy dress section at the end of this shop to weird you out a bit more.

This is a lovely jewellers situated on one of the shopping streets of Horsforth. It's nearer the…read moretop end but fairly straightforward to find - if you're walking up the hill it's on the left! On display they have a lovely mix of modern and vintage jewellery. Most notably in their window was the huge selection of stylish new amber jewellery, from chunky necklaces to delicate droplet earrings, and their birthstone collection. The birthstone at the time was Turquoise for December and there was a delightful selection of pieces from the delicate to the more statement items. Prices were really quite reasonable for such new pieces, ranging from around £20 for a small item to £160 for a more ornate piece. Not bad! They also had a range of watches and men's items on show so they really had all bases covered. A lovely jewellers in the heart of Horsforth.

From the owner: The services that we have to offer are repairs on jewellery and watches in our on site workshop,…read morevaluation for insurance purposes, estimate to replace, cutting off rings at no charge and re sizing, we will buy your un wanted gold, watches, gold and silver coins at top prices. We specialise in secondhand jewellery that we have bulk bought over the years, resulting in us being able to offer them to you at very competitive prices. If you have any unwanted items, then we offer a exchange service for any items in the showroom. We buy in and sell high end watches eg. Rolex, Breitling, Cartier..... With silver becoming the more popular choice of metal we have a very large section of the showroom dedicated to just silver, as well as fine cut crystal, photo frames and gifts for all occasions. Our quality watch brands we sell are Citizen, Rotary, Sekonda and Ice watch. We are also here for advice and can give you a free, no obligation quote on any work you may need doing.

This is a very interesting store in Manchester near the Manchester Piccadilly train station, about…read moretwo blocks away. It has an array of things, including books, records, but also clothes. Very cheap, as everything is used. What makes it worth visiting is its charm as an "anything goes" type place..I bought CD's and a few books there. I thought the owner was friendly. It's fun to rummage through these things. Take a half hour or so and have fun browsing.

HELP WANTED! I'll be traveling to Manchester, Liverpool, and London for a week in late November and…read morewould really appreciate some good recommendations for music shops, bookstores, coffee shops, and places to eat! I really like places that are quirky and out of the box so if you live in any of these areas and have suggestions please reach out! Thanks! :) -Amberly

I'm probably going to be repeating myself a lot throughout my antique reviews for York, but I'm…read moregonna say it anyway. Love love love the vintage stores here, cuz in London, everything is so expensive, and the market is so much more saturated that I feel like the cool things worth buying (to me) are snapped up. This store is above an old wooden furniture shop. The original store started off in a tiny cellar at 1 Foundry Road, much smaller but with some really interesting things! Anyhow, this place has lots of large furniture pieces, tons of paintings and embroidered pieces, china (of course I bought another teacup), suitcases, books.. I was salivating! Again, not much traffic here for some reason. But it's incredible, make sure you visit both stores! :)

From the owner: HELLO We are BBC-Antiques.co.uk our shop in 44 Piccadilly is often refered to as like Castle…read moreMuseum but with every exhibit for sale at affordable prices , we have furniture architectural salvage pottery porcelain glassware silver and plated ware , a weird room with curios and quite exciting , we specialise in vintage and old art and have a wide selection of paintings prints and other art and minerals and fossils , visit today !

I'll keep this one short and sweet. My boyfriend recommended a little shop on Thomas Street when…read morethe ring he bought me had its pearl go running off into the bowels of my dad's car (said boyfriend then found this little pearl like an absolute hero). In order to get it reattached, the reason he suggested Mutter's is because he managed to get a broken ring of his fixed for about four quid. Not bad, huh! So the saga goes like this. One day I went to this shop, took the ring and its detached pearl, and he said it wouldn't be a problem fixing it - just come back the next day. Amazing! When I did, there was a different chap there, so I gave him the details I was left with and he fetched my item. 'You must have fluttered your eyelashes at him yesterday,' he said, 'because he's very kindly attached a note here saying no charge.' What? I never flutter my eyelashes. Well, not in these situations. Anyway, evidently no job too small, but if it is particularly small, you'll barely get charged anything... IF anything! I was one happy customer, despite money never changing hands. They've bought me for life though. I'll certainly recommend this place to all my friends. One of those cute little traditional Thomas Street shops in amongst all the hubbub, I do hope it sticks around forever.

If you want to sell scrap gold i strongly advise you avoid this place. I tried them with a few…read moredifferent items and they tried to tell me a 22ct gold sovereign coin was only 9ct gold and they also tried to buy my antique silver as epns. Do not be fooled by the too eager to help attitude along with the posh accents the staff have in this place as they tell lies. I'm sure after 40 years plus in the jewellery game that the staff know a Sovereign coin is 22ct and not 9ct which has less than half the value. Just makes me think if i was a little clueless old lady these guys would be laughing at me when im gone.