Looking for special gifts and stationery this Christmas? Want to support small local business in London? Lead Tin will seal the deal.
Christmas note: Lead Tin is hosting its first Christmas Fair on 14 and 15 December, with children’s clothes, handmade arts and crafts, jewellery, art supplies and more.
By Jennifer Barton
As any parent will tell you, kids LOVE stationery supplies.
While Smiggle, Tinc and Paperchase are masterful at creating covetable, bright, kid-friendly pieces, nothing beats the experience of entering a real stationery store – one with artists’ supplies for Picassos (or Picassos-in-training) as well as exquisite wrapping paper and note cards.
Lead Tin is the newest addition to SW11’s Webb’s Road, a stretch dotted with boutique hairdressers, funky art and furniture shops and glorious market-delis.
In fact, such is the community spirit here that Lead Tin has the same co-owner, Stefan Balachandran, as nearby Spanish deli Tierra Verde and its cult next-door market, Lior’s Kitchen, where locals come to stock up on everything from burrata to flatbreads to Diana’s dark chocolate bars and floral bouquets from Blooms & Blumchen. The other co-owner is artist and gallerist Andrew Wenrick, of The Last Supper, also on Webbs.
Lead Tin is more than your average stationery shop; its tagline, “curating the modern desk,” says it all. Walking inside makes you feel like your inner writer, or painter, or creative in any form, is ready to finally be released… you just need a Blackwing Starting Point Japanese graphite pencil set to make it happen.
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Products are sourced from around the globe – all the way from Portland, Oregon to Japan. You can stock up on pencils from vintage brands like the Portuguese Viarco, the world’s smallest pencil factory (it’s been in operation since 1907 – take that, Smiggle), pick up strikingly patterned wrapping paper from Cambridge Imprints, scribble your thoughts in a journal by Bindewerk and paint your wildest dreams using Gamblin’s oil paints.
A Luminance pencil set and Notater sketchbook might just be what your 10-year-old is dreaming of for Christmas, while Milan rubbers for sub-£1 can tick the emergency box of getting your child something that’s practical and inexpensive when you weren’t planning on buying them anything but quite fancied popping in for a browse yourself…
If you’re looking for new furniture, they’ve got that too: made-to-order reclaimed timber benches from Neal Poston – even the striking display wooden drawing desk is for sale.
Lead Tin is more than a glorious new shop we want to photograph and spend next month’s paycheque in. It’s also an experiential space: there are kids’ crafts workshops, yoga and breathwork sessions, Pilates, life drawing classes, songwriting workshops and music classes. You can hire out the space to run your own classes (there’s a studio downstairs). Keen to teach a class or take one? Email leadtinlondon@gmail.com.
Lead Tin
30 Webbs Road, SW11 6SF
