St Mary’s Hospice Birmingham

One of several charity shops in the main shopping area of Cotteridge, and one of two St Mary’s outlets in the area — the other being a larger, dedicated furniture store a few hundred yards away that is well worth a look, and which I reviewed on this site also (check my reviews to see). This St Mary’s shop is much more like a standard charity shop than it’s nearby colleague. Here you’ll find bric-​à-​brac, books, clothes, records, toys, and all the usual things you’d expect to find in a high street charity store.
The shop itself can be quite cramped, especially on weekends when it tends to get busy with shoppers popping in for a browse. One thing they tend to have here that is worth dropping in for is a fairly decent selection of picture frames. You’ll need to purchase the entire picture and discard the original photo or print, but you’ll be picking up a good frame for a song.

St Mary’s Hospice is a cause very close to my heart as this was the hospice which looked after my dad towards the end of his illness. For this reason I always pop into the hospice charity shop whenever I’m in Kings Norton as I feel it’s important to support such a worthwhile cause.
Luckily for me they always have an excellent level of stock and the clothes are generally fashionable and in very good condition.
The ladies clothing in particular in this shop is very good with a wide range of sizes represented, my friend is a size 20 and she can always find something she likes in this charity shop — which is amazing when you consider even George at Asda doesn’t cater well for her size!
I’ve recently bought jeans, sweatshirts, shirts and a dress in this charity shop. Prices are very good with most items being priced at around the £2 mark, the days of buying things for pennies in charity shops has gone but this is one shop that isn’t trying to charge the same price as if you’d bought it new — a recent visit into an Oxfam store led me to walk out with nothing after I realised that many of the clothes available could actually be bought cheaper on the High Street brand new!
There isn’t much in the way of mens clothes, but then there rarely is in charity shops. Sometimes I’ll spot a nice looking top or something similar for my fella but more often than not the mens rack is empty.
I like the selection of childrens clothes in the St Mary’s Hospice charity shop, particularly those in my 19 month old daughters size. The childrens clothes are always excellent value with most items costing just 99p, when I was pregnant they were even selling brand new Mothercare babygrows for 50p each so I stocked up!
Another favourite shelf of mine is the paperback books where I have bought absolutely loads, books cost between 79p and £1.49 usually although there are sometimes some more sought after books which will be priced accordingly.
The shop is laid out really well and there is plenty of room between the shelves, this means wheelchair users can get around once inside although space is somewhat limited near the till. However, staff in the shop seem to want to accommodate everyone so I’m sure someone will help if you get into difficulty.