AIBU to ask if Clapham is a good place for a day trip?.

[fourandahalfkids]

So we are taking a day trip to Clapham on Saturday. I say day trip but we are from Cornwall so most of it will be spent travelling. Dh has to be there for a couple of hours and we (dd3 14 and myself) are tagging along for the ride.
We are thinking about getting lunch and going to the common after dh has finished but we will have a couple of hours to spare so what would you recommend?
Are there any good shops/malls/markets worth visiting? Or any sightseeing?
Thank you

Posting here for traffic.

Playground on the Common.
Northcote Road for cafes and shops

Hampton court alert - and other places check Covid arrangements and lot of surprising places will be fully booked - it’s not easy to be fully spotaneous abut eating at the moment.

@NicknamesAreLikeKleenex

If you’re genuinely stuck in Clapham for a Saturday afternoon with a teen then Nardullis ice cream shop is lovely, you can get a nice picnic from the Venn Street market or have a restaurant lunch, and check out the rather good charity shops if that’s your thing, but like everyone else says you’d be much better advised to get a tube/bus to Waterloo/London Bridge/Battersea Park.

Too be fair, I'd travel a fair distance for one of their ice creams...

If you want to eat out, you'll need to book now, availability will be very limited.

Notting Hill would be nicer than Clapham I think. Portobello market is good for street food and stalls.

@Embracelife

Playground on the Common. Northcote Road for cafes and shops

I don’t think a 14yo will fancy the playground.

Clapham Common can be mentioned so much on the news, in books etc that it's easy to think it's a thing to do if you're not a local. Then you turn up and realise it's just a large expanse of grass with a few trees dotted around and absolutely heaving with people as so many people don't have gardens or will have met friends there as it's central. It's basically no different to the non-playground bit of Boscowan Park or somewhere similar.
Unless you absolutely have to do the journey, I'd stay at home. If you do have to come up and want to do something with a 14yo whilst leaving the "sights" for your summer trip, then Victoria has enough shops to fill a couple of hours and so does Wimbledon, both of which are a couple of stops from Clapham. They're quite local shopping destinations but still have a totally different range of shops to Truro and whilst many will overlap with Exeter, you may well find they have different stock in them.