London's musical instrument shops

J Reid & Sons

"WE DON'T GET many high-class customers up here in the badlands," laughs proprietor John Gregory. It's probably because they wouldn't expect to find Britain's largest piano store in this unfashionable end of north London, encircled by Tottenham's grim, grey, low-rise council estates. Step in through a blue garage door to the left-hand side of two large Georgian terraced houses and you're suddenly dazzled by thousands of pounds worth of pianos: brand new Bosendorfers, Bluthners, Kawais and Yamahas; reconditioned Steinways and Bechsteins, shiny new Czech uprights (Petrof, Weinbach, Zeidel, Riga Kloss), and scores of restored second-hand models lined up around several huge storerooms.