Sorry, no other word for it: horrible Chinese crap. Not suitable for the real outdoors…read more Irresponsable. Do not buy here - even if you think you should buy crap, you can get it on AliExpress for one-tenth of their price.

This place has incredible pricing. Stopped here to pick up everything we needed to camp out at…read moreWimbledon for show courts, including a tent, sleeping bags, chair, and a couple odds and ends. Many items are marked down or discounted, and they were even running a sale where we got an additional percent off of our total- everything came to under 70 pounds, which was still under 100USD, which we predicted to be our minimum budget for all the items we needed. Besides the good selection and prices, the staff here were extremely helpful and kind. Our cashier suggested a different tent when she found out our needs and gave us a few tips to grab other items in the area. Highly recommend, wish we had this chain in the US.

I have come in here over the past few years, to get snowboarding equipment and I really recommend…read morethis shop for their selection of products and customer service. I was once after a tent, and one of the staff was nice enough to rig the tent up in the shop for me! They have a really great collection of snowboards, bindings, boots, and camping gadgets. They stock brands including Mountain Harbour, Patagonia, Helly Hanson, Quicksilver, Killy, Isuzu, First Resort, Subaru, Animal and Berghaus.

I'm an outdoor guy and I love browsing here at Ellis Brigham. Every time I'm planning to go on a…read morehiking trip or any kind of vacation really, I come here to check out what kind of clothing or gadgets I could need: a new tent? New hiking boots? Some wooly socks or another function jacket? It's a huge store - for central London - and on three floors they offer everything a true outdoor person needs. The sales people here are also always very friendly and assist you throughout. Once, I wanted to buy a pair of shoes and I had that poor salesman fetch me more than a dozen different shoes in various sizes. In the end, I told the poor guy that I needed to think some more before making a hasty decision. (I did go back a couple hours later though, as I just couldn't stop thinking about that one particular pair ;-) I highly recommend!

The North Face here on Southampton Street in Covent Garden, London is a fairly nice branch of the…read morechain, of course only selling own brand products. The location is in central London, Covent Garden, fairly close to the likes of Honest Burgers and Apple is pretty handy. The store is a decent size, it's average and has a satisfactory selection of most "summer" North Face gear, visiting in April you'd expect to see away with the winter clothing, but for an outdoor store I was surprised and disappointed at how little they had to support the cold, outdoor climates, the jackets they did have tended to be windproof or showerproof, rather than completely waterproof. I understand it's going into winter, but one would expect more of a range especially with this store being an outdoor store, which even the staff member I spoke to agreed with me on. The staff here seemed really friendly, I had a short conversation about football and the in-store product range with a cool guy that worked here. The prices seemed a little higher again, but this is a brand people pay for if you're looking for more of a bargain and perhaps more "outdoorsy" products, perhaps an outlet store is your best bet, yet sadly they are always out of town and hard to get to, the nearest outlet store to this one is at London Designer Outlet opposite Wembley Stadium, even that seems to be a fairly small store. A decent store with helpful, friendly staff yet only a satisfactory, and slightly poor product range. 3*

I'm not a huge fan of North Face, purely for aesthetic reasons, I find in comparison to other Out…read moreDoor clothes, their range is quite plain and dull. However I was happy to find that they had some Bright Green boarding trousers, which seem to brighten the shop up a bit! I went in the winter, and Upstairs was mainly snowboarding/ skiing gear and downstairs, they had a good range of camping gear. The prices, were about average for such products.

This is a large store specialising in camping gear, out door gadgets, climbing, and snowboarding/…read moreskiing clothing and accessories. I found their best products to be out doors gadgets like The Meteotronic Weather Forecast hand held device which provides a professional weather- pretty useful for £40. This store could give you some great ideas for what to get Dad for Christmas/ birthday. In fashion wise... I find the clothes and colours to be quite plain jane, practical but not very attractive.

Pricey, but well worth it because of the personal service and the vast selection…read more On day 2 in London it was clear that the shoes that worked for me in Dallas would NOT work at all in London. I hobbled in, barely able to walk, ad in great pain from shows that had become too tight from all the walking I had done. I left nearly pain free, in shoes that not only supported and housed my swollen aching feet, but also corrected my tendency to pronate. It took trying 10 pairs and about 50 minutes to find the shows I needed, and In that time I realized how deeply knowledgeable staff was about hair products and issues customers have with their feet. I was so blessed to find such an experienced and helpful employee. My London adventure was almost at an end before it really began!

Since people keep asking me -- this is one of the main places I buy my sports clothing…read more The North Face has equipment for different types of sports and activities. They have the best capri pants (running pants), very light and quick-drying so I don't feel all wet when I'm working out. Hoodies are my weakness and their jackets are comfy and propper for London weather. When you travel so much and change climates frequently, clothing becomes an important part of your life. Since we wear clothes every day, I insist investing in quality. I don't mean to sound like promoting them, I just own a lot of clothes from this brand and I'm very pleased. Also: My brown sneakers are from here, but they may not have them since they're from last season. I always get lots of compliments on them. /Trying not to sound like a shopaholic girl/.

A bit tucked away near Petticoat Lane but easy enough to find from Liverpool St. Lots of stock,…read moreparticularly for hiking, trekking, mountaineering (alpine), rock climbing, and camping. Good selection of sleeping gear, backpacks, and climbing boots. Cotswold Outdoor also have a great online ordering system that allows customers to pick up items from the store. Since this is near City, it's really easy to stop by after work and pick up an order. Staff are really helpful too. If you buy a lot of outdoor gear, it's worth becoming a member for the discounts and points. They'll also notify you of sales. Also don't forget that if you're a National Trust member, there is a 15% discount on all items, including anything in the sales! Show them your card in store when you check out. Naughty of them not to advertise this, but hey... now you know!

Tried to sell me a pair of trousers that were far too big and didn't seem to understand what was…read moreactually needed for outdoors activities. Dead rat by the front door - think it died trying to get out of the store by the looks of things, staff did not seem to care about it.

Paramo is one of the many, many outdoor clothing shops available to the public in Covent Garden. It…read morebasically sells jackets, and jacket accessories! We're talking two floors of heavy, heavy jacketing. Green ones to camoflague you in the forests, white ones to camoflauge you in snow. Brown ones to make you look down to earth (get it) and red ones. The jackets are of exceptional quality - they feel very light and very silky, but retain warmth like a champion of warmth retainers. Staff are very friendly, well up for a joke and a bit of banter. Fact of the day told by one of the floor assistants - You lose bodyheat 25% faster in water then in air. Fascinating, non? They also sell things like waterproofing spray for clothes, to try and negative this 25% bodyheat loss. Their clothing is designed to allow skin to breathe but also moves sweat across the surface of the body, causing maximum evaporation leading to cooling on the inside but staying warmth on the out. Expensive jackets nonetheless, look to be spending about £200! A nice little place though.

I was very pleased with the service offered by Paramo. I live in Staffordshire and felt…read moredisgruntled that I would miss out on the recent one day sale. Oh no! I ordered some gaiters that arrived post free, together with a bottle of complimenrty Tech Wash and 104 loyalty points were added to my account. The gaiters proved to be the wrong size (my fault) but have been changed and delivered in less than a week. My only negative is that I would prefer to shop personally and don't have a Paramo store near me. Pauline Rooker

Terrible experience, discriminatory staff…read more I visited the store last week to try on ski boots and was told to come back later as the trained staff were on their breaks, so I returned after a few hours and was denied entry by the security guard. Staff told me the guard had received a picture of me from a CCTV camera at another nearby store - I do not even live in London, and had arrived the previous day. They showed me the photo, and the person in it was obviously not me - this would have been easy for the guard and staff to see if they looked at it properly, but it was apparent to me that I had been profiled and was being discriminated against. None of the staff were interested in what I had to say - the store manager was less than 2 metres away from me throughout this incident, but they had their back turned the whole time, clearly not wanting to be involved. I had heard good things about this store, but I only had my time wasted, and walked out feeling humiliated and upset. I emailed customer service about this over a week ago and my complaint was forwarded to multiple managers of the business straight away. I am only writing this public review now because I am yet to receive a single further response. Unacceptable on all counts.

This is the best place in London to come for all your outdoor gear needs. Set over 4 or 5 floors…read morethere is dedicated floor space to everything you will need for sports ranging from skiing to high altitude mountaineering. For me, nowhere in London has anything like its selection. The only real downside is that all the gear is skewed towards higher end products which is fine if you want to splash the cash but means that you can leave here having spent a worrying amount of money on day glow boots or GoreTex jackets.