This is a really cool shopping mall with all the stores you would expect and some wicked ones on…read morethe walkway that you wouldn't - I stumbled across a wooden stand which had some fabulous items! As you would expect, its all clean, well maintained but unless you are used to it, it was a bit confusing, signs weren't brilliant in large crowds. Theres plenty of parking and entrances taking you into the lovely market town of Banbury. Recommended for your weekend browsing!!!

It is long overdue that I write this review. The Heart of the Country is simply a potpourri of fun…read morethings to do for folks of all ages. In terms of value - unless you decide to buy a meal, drinks or goods from the various stores and restaurants it is free! Even the parking is free. Everyone seems to be friendly and welcoming. There are walks too, especially nice for the kids. And yes all the eating and drinking places are good to excellent!

The pear tree creperie is a small French restaurant specialising in you got it crepes. It is…read morelocated in a small crafts place which is called the heart of the country village. Now me and my sister are obsessed with pancakes anyway so when we heard about this place we decided we had to go and find it. So Saturday off we went in the car and found it. Mouths watering at just the thought of pancakes they had a lot to live up to but they managed it and this creperie is such a little find I think I will go there more often now I know where it is. The address is as follows; Heart of the country village Swinfen Near Lichfield Staffordshire WS14 6QR Now in terms of location it is a great place as it is right by Lichfield city centre which is a great place and as it is practically just off a main road it is quite easy to find. I can't really tell you much about the actual craft village as we didn't go around as this was purely a pancake hunting trip only. It did look very sweet though with lots of furniture, garden and even a bridal shop. The actual creperie is tucked away and has an inside and an outdoor area. Outdoors the wooden tables and trellising around is very pretty. Inside and you get a very French feel about the place. The tables have plastic covers which looks very sweet and the decoration is very nice with antique looking things which is nice. The furniture is all a nice wood and everything just looks nice. The menu is lovely with lots of sweet and savoury crepes on offer. I went for a sweet maple syrup one because I really fancied it but they do so many different ones such as cheese and ham ones, pear and chocolate sauce and ones with alcohol which they light at the table which looked great. The prices are not to bad with the cheapest being about £2 and the most expensive being around £6. Drinks were around £1.20 each. The pancakes did not take long to come out and when they did they were massive and they gave us a lot of maple syrup so they do make sure you get full from them. I noticed people having savoury ones with salads and they looked yummy and definitely filling enough to have for lunch or for tea. The crepes were cooked to perfection and I have to say I couldn't have done any better. They taste so nice that when you have eaten one you always want another. Even though I felt quite sick when I had eaten it I still would have had another if my sister would have let me but she dragged me out of there which I am glad of. The craft village is very sweet and the car park is quite big so you will always be ok to park. I think the creperie is lovely and well worth the visit especially if you do take a look around and then maybe go visit Lichfield to finish off your day. I am going to visit again as it was nice and the food is cooked to a high standard. There are plenty of staff there who are all very friendly and I think that you will have a good time. It might be worth mentioning as well that you can reserve tables there as it does get quite busy and as we left there was only 1 table left. What a little find in the middle of the country. Wonderful! Thanks for reading. xxx P.S .Thsi has been posted on other sites but always by me katygriff

Great little shopping centre.. Has all the big brands and some high end high street brands too…read more Such as river island, h&m ,primary, etc... Good ample cark parking, its free to park after 6pm most evening. Has pub's. Bars, restaurants also has a Cinema. Free parking voucher when u spend £5 or more on shopping in Tesco.

Newly built shopping complex. 1st time I've been here and to sides to the shopping centre. Good for…read moreparking and wide range of shops all big sizes. Deffo check it out and you can waste hours here also just looking around and eating...

I recommen going to Hobbycraft if ur a therian they have felt, paint, masks, feathers, brushes,…read moreeverything you need!

Ventura park although I frequent on occasion is really just a clone of other business parks , it…read morebacks the traffic up completely on a weekend I once got trapped in the Sainsburys car park side for over two hours on a Saturday...with added nandos and pizza express its got a lot of shops to choose from if your an avid spender notice didnt say shopper !

If you don't fancy heading to the centre of Birmingham for shopping heaven (why not?!) this…read moreshopping park has a number of flagship stores and eateries. Best of all the car parking is free, although as you can imagine finding a space at the weekends can be tricky so I would advise getting here early. Next, Boots (with a mini Waitrose inside), Topshop, Oasis and many more are here. If you are feeling hungry there is a Frankie and Benny's, Nandos, and Harvester and well as a few coffee places to try. All in all a worthwhile place to visit to stock up on the essentials.

As I'm currently the Duchess of the Fort, it would be rude not to review the place!…read more For me, this is quite local a I live just a couple of miles away. It's a typical out of town shopping centre with all of the high street familiars in one open space, so not at all an indie heaven, but useful if you need a Boots or M&S. It also has a BHS, Dorothy Perkins, Evans, and Carephone Warehouse, to name but a few. There's plenty of coffee, cake and food options including Starbucks, Costa Coffee, M&S Cafe and eateries such as Nandos, Harvester and Frankie & Bennies. There's plenty of free parking (it does get very busy around Christmas, and sometimes of a weekend) and it feels less claustrophobic than some shopping centres, being open air and built in a big loop. As far as these things go, it's decent enough, well maintained and with plenty of options.

For us a new "find" since we just relocated (escaped?) from the USA and moved to our dream home…read morejust 5 miles away from this shopping area in Burton on Trent. We just happened to notice it yesterday as we went for lunch at the Winery nearby (did I say our favorite restaurant in the region?!?!) Today we stopped by to have a browse on a beautiful sunny day. The area is lovely, seems to be a reasonable amount of parking nearby. It is basically an extensive, light and airy shopping arcade. Many wonderful shops like Marks and Spencer's (including their wonderful Food Hall), various clothes stores such as Primark but many upmarket ones too, WHSmiths, Boots, and so much more - eating places galore for pastries, coffee and snacks. Good experience, loved it - we WILL be back very soon (next week we are planning). Rain or shine (since it is all covered) this is a real shopping gem!

This is nothing like your average retail park; most are nearly always home to the usual large chain…read morestores and supermarkets. Okay, so Rubery's has a Morrisons, but it doesn't go overboard on the generic stores (and one supermarket is definitely a necessity for Rubery locals anyway.) At the centre of the park you'll find a Premier Inn, and surrounding that, there's a pub, bowling and cinema. So there's loads of great things for visitors to do, without having to spend too much money on travelling into the city centre everyday of their stay in Brum. However, there are quite a few roads that go through the park, and it's a little bit annoying having to cross each one to go to different store. But the park is home to one of two Empire cinemas in Birmingham, so it's definitely worth a visit to see movies on the big screen (other than at Cineworld or the Odeon) The location of the park is really great too; it's really tranquil and open planned with lots of grassland, so customers staying at the hotel don't have to breathe in the smog of the city centre all day long.

Sad to see so many of the stores closing down - partially "The Amazon Effect" plus the leasing…read morecompany raising rents to point that even national chains like Bon Marche and Evans closing their doors :( Review #10 2020

Burton is still a great shopping centre.Its rated the 6th best shopping town in the Midlands and…read morehas virtually all the major stores including M&S, Primark,New look,Monsoon,River island, Top Shop/Top Man and big new stores for H&M and Next. Like a lot of towns it has suffered due to shops going into administration such as BonMarche ,and CVA's such as Evans, but it has lots of stores all in the 3 linked covered shopping centres. Car parking is plentiful, situated next to the shopping centres and is cheap. There is 4 hours free at Middleway and its free after 3pm in most of the council run car parks. Can really recommend a visit.

intu Derby has had various names over the years, it became intu Derby after the centre was bought…read moreout from Westfield in 2014, but before then it was known as The Eagle Centre. Located in Derby city centre, around half a mile from the train station it has 199 stores over two floors, with the upper level mainly being occupied by restaurants. The largest anchor stores over 3 levels are Marks and Spencer and Debenhams. The mall is modern in most areas, however, other parts could certainly be done with some improvement which seemed so poor, it looks like two different shopping centres in comparison. The mobile signal around the mall was terrible, It even got so bad I had to go into the Three store, who is my mobile operator who explained it is bad and they normally have a signal booster which wasn't working. Luckily the centre did have wi-fi but even that was pretty poor. The centre is the largest shopping centre in the East Midlands region in terms of area and is the 14th largest in the country (Just 227 meters squared larger than intu Milton Keynes & thecentre:mk) The security staff gave me a bad vibe, they seemed like they were wanting to cause trouble and didn't seem as friendly as elsewhere in the UK, which could be said about the mall staff as a whole, but it is still one of the better shopping centres in the area with some nice brands including the city's only Starbucks store, you can also find stores from Nando's, Carluccio's, Jack Jones, Hugo Boss, WHSmith and more, so it is one of the best places to shop in the city even if it does lack multiple brands which can be found at smaller malls in Nottingham and Leicester such as Currys PC World and Apple. 3*

Now, I'm not normally a fan of shopping centres, but I have to confess I was seriously impressed by…read morethe new (opened in October 2007) Westfield Centre. It's seriously large inside, with 175 stores anchored by a large M&S and Debenhams. But what I liked was the bright, light and seriously minimalist finish to everything, and apparently all to a very high standard. It was about as far from a crappy British shopping centre as I have ever seen. On the inside, it also steers clear of that horrible cheap and tacky atrium style of architecture. It looks as though someone has at least tried to put some thought into it all. The stores were - unsurprisingly - mostly the familiar set of High Street names, although there were also some clearly local outlets, too, although a few of these looked perilously close to discount stores. But, overall, I was impressed - and surprised, because Derby isn't that large a city. Only 4 stars? Well, for such a huge place, their signposting and mapping wasn't that great, even with the hi-tech touch-sensitive store and location finder. (Nice technology, shame about the map). They have the usual range of services (toilets, parking for 2,000 cars, etc) as well as a cinema. It's slap bang in the middle of the city, so it's hard to miss.

Just off the A38 is the Barton Turns Marina, set in sizeable grounds which are part of the National…read moreForest, the many fishing lakes and collection of mature trees, make this a good place to go for a stroll, rain or shine. It is particular popular with anglers, and there is a small caravan site just after the entrance. The Marina itself is quite sizeable, with the space for many narrow boats to moor either temporarily or permanently. Nearest to the spacious car park is the Waterfront, a large pub with outdoor seating overlooking the marina, it is a popular place, with regular live entertainment. Adjacent to this is a Garden4Less, a garden centre and on the other side Toys of Yesteryear, a toy shop, housing a toy museum. There is also one of the top 10 coffee shops in the country here, the Apple Tree, which also has a speciality delicatessen. There are a number of fashion stores including Blue Harbour (high end women's fashion), Sophia's and Start and Tremayne (Handbags etc). There is an impressive art gallery - Gallery 3, adjacent to a large and popular Thai restaurant: Siam Corner; as well as the Butcher, the Baker and the ice cream maker, a great place for specialist food ingredients, which also provides groceries for the mooring narrow boats. There are even shops on narrow boats, including an estate agent, a bookshop and ceramic painting boat for the children. The pick of the bunch is probably Brauz, a gift shop where you are likely to find that present for the person who has everything. Barton Marina is a great place to wile away a few hours.

A Lovely place to visit if the weather is good but also loads to look at and do if weather not that…read moregood see my full review and photos at http://www.kevinsimon.co.uk/?p=2810