Astley Hall

A colonial-era shopping block on Rajpur Road, quieter and more mannered than Paltan Bazaar: boutiques, jewellers, cane and wooden furniture workshops, woollens, stationers and cafés set in between. Local historians attribute its construction to Frederick 'Pahari' Wilson, the Englishman who made his name up at Harsil. Its cult address is Pratap Music House, where the story told locally has George Harrison and John Lennon stopping in during their 1968 stay in India to have a guitar seen to. This is the place to browse slowly when the bazaar crowds become too much.

Unhurried heritage shopping row with a guitar-shop Beatles story attached