Marchpane

Opened in 1989, London’s longest-serving specialist for children’s books, Marchpane, is the only bookshop we know with its own BBC Dalek. Other features are signed photos of Russian cosmonauts, punk fanzines and circuit board fixtures. Since 2008, the shop has also housed a fully functional Scalextric track downstairs (the owner is making up for not having had one as a child). Stock includes classics such as Winnie-the-Pooh and The Wind in the Willows, and the shop specialises in Lewis Carroll, with a collection of illustrated editions of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, but you don’t need to be a serious collector to appreciate the stock, which starts at around £5 and includes some real gems. Downstairs, near the gramophone and chaise-longue, are drawers housing periodicals from the 1930s to ’60s.