Clarks Village

This is a salutory tale for my fellow men! I thought I would be safe from having to go shopping by organising a holiday in the Mendip Hills with my then girlfriend. I thought a weekend driving round the Somerset countryside would be most relaxing.
Little did I know that Clarks had decided to build a huge outlet park in the middle of nowhere! Then to add insult to injury, they charge you to park in the car park!
To be fair, there is a huge range of shops here with anything from Adidas to Next to Waterford Wedgewood. The discounts ranged from very generous to none and like most outlet places, you have to search hard and be disciplined to find true bargains rather than just buying rubbish because it’s cheap and never wearing it
If you feel your fuel levels flagging, there are food outlets like Burger King around
OK I confess I did buy some shoes from Timberland and had to be dragged out of Le Creuset before I did something my credit card would regret!
For you men, if you want to avoid shopping in the Mendip Hills, don’t go to Street!

This is a discount shopping village and features such shops as The Body Shop, Monsoon, Thorntons, Next and Gap to name but a few. It also has a Starbucks, a bakery and a restaurant and a few small takeaway food places.
It has a merry go round, an adventure playground shaped like a castle, and near Christmas even an ice rink to keep the kids amused.
My favourite shop here is the Body Shop which is a great place to stock up on half price gift sets for Christmas. The downsides of this place are that it gets very busy at weekends and even though it has huge car parks it can be hard to park. Also as it is all end of line stuff alot of the clothes are either in xxl or xxsmall sizes, if you are average sized then it is quite limited. I always avoid Next it is like a jumble sale in there, it is huge and there are so many racks of clothes with tons of people scrabbling through them — it is a bit crazy.

This is a fabulous shopping mall with designer and ordinary gear at greatly reduced prices.
There is vast car parking although this does get busy quickly especially at weekends.
There are plenty of shops for everyone and a really good play fort for the children to play on. Next to this play facility is seating for adults and a mobile coffee shack. There is also a carousel to ride on.
Plenty of permanent eateries including Starbucks and Burger King as well as temporary shacks selling baked potatoes, chestnuts at Christmas etc
The mall gets decorated really beautifully at Christmas but it does get extremely busy then.

Hit and miss as to whether you come out with loads or little. Good range of shops, many which you don’t often see at outlet centres. Busy at all times and parking can become difficult sometimes. Only downside is having to pay for parking.

Clarks Village is usually packed out and it can sometimes take ages to get a parking space here.
Clarks Village is an outlet shopping centre. As well as Clarks shoe shops, there are plenty of other designer outlet stores including Marks and Spencers, Pilot, Remmingtons, Wittards, Crabtree and Evelyn and lots more.
The stores I always visit include: —
A Body Shop with discount products — this is my favourite shop in Clark Village and always good for Xmas gifts,
A discount Next Store called Next to nothing — you can sometimes get some really cheap bargains here but its a bit of a mess and half the clothes are in odd sizes, and stock is often left thrown on the floor or jumbled together.
a Cadbury factory shop — this stocks most of the Cadbury brands and has lots of special offers.
The worst things about Clarks Village are the crowds, especially near Christmas and the food, there is nowhere good to eat in Clarks Village and all available food is over-​priced.

Clarks village is an outlet shopping centre with a varitey of shop inside. It is hard to list the shops as they change pretty often somethings this is a good move other times I find one of the best shops are gone!
There is Marks and spencers, Monsoon, Clarks (of course) Cadbury, Mountain warehouse, Next, Gap etc
Some of these shops are busting to the seams with great stuff at really low prices some I can’t seem to find anything that I would consider to be a bargain.
There is loads of parking and a food hall which has loads of choice and it is reasonable priced. There is something for everyone at clarks village.

Clarks village is an out of town discount shopping centre near Street. I’ve been a few times and find it a bit hit and miss — it’s not so great in the run up to Christmas, when everyone else is looking for a bargain.
The Clarks outlet shop is well worth a visit but again, there’s no way of knowing whether you’ll be able to find anything good in your size. There is a full price Clarks store just nextdoor if you’re desparate, though.
Other outlet stores include Next and The Body Shop amongst others, and there are also some full price stores and coffee shops, such as Starbucks.
The car park is big, but you do have to pay to use it.

Its getting better these days, they’ve got a Nike factory, an adidas shop, a marks and spencers. theres rumours floating around of a john lewis too, which would be good. Gets lots of regular customers, tons of people every weekend. Worth a visit if you’re in the area.

Clarks Village billed itself as outlet shopping, but nowadays not many of the shops are factory outlet discount places — most of the shops are now just offshoots of a main brand.
It’s worth a walk around, you’ll find bargains, but don’t think it’s guaranteed.

Clark’s Village ist der erste Outlet-​Store Englands und mir hats dort sehr gut gefallen. Es erinnert wirklich an ein kleines Dorf mit 90 Läden und man kann dort wirklich gute Schnäppchen schlagen! Besonders gefallen hat mir der Laden vom Body Shop, hier habe ich einiges kaufen können! Von Taunton, der «Hauptstadt» Somersets aus (Südwesten Englands) kann man das Dorf gut per Bus erreichen.

Cool location (well — if you happen to be in Somerset) for this outlet mall that really started focusing on Clarks Shoes but has expanded to include a large amount of brands. More mid market than designer, and a bit too pedestrian for me, but worth a visit if you are around and like shopping.
It is open air, so not great if it’s pouring down with rain.