Write off? A sad story as more Bloomsbury bookshops are closed
Stores disappear from area with literary reputation
THE number of bookshops in Bloomsbury has more than halved from a peak of 30 just a few years ago.
There are now just seven left according to bookshop owner and literary campaigner Brian Lake, who delivered the warning as another looked set to close down.
Marchmont in Burton Street, a specialist poetry shop, is at risk, he said, while Gekoski, formerly of Pied Bull Yard, which deals in 20th-century literary manuscripts, recently moved to Bayswater.
Don Holder, who has run Marchmont since 1977, has kept it going for years as a labour of love, but said he now wants to retire and sell it on to family friends.
A planning application has been submitted to Camden Council for the bookshop to be demolished and replaced with a four-storey home.
Mr Holder said he had lost “hundreds of pounds a month” on the shop and called on people to stop “meddling” in his plan to sell it.
“I’d like to keep the bookshops but there’s no way of making it a profitable concern – that’s why they’re all folding,” said Mr Holder.
Tatiana Flessas, who is lining up to buy the property from Mr Holder, said she would welcome any buyers interested in taking the bookshop on but warned that it is a struggling concern.
“If people are having these right-on ideas about keeping bookshops open, let’s have some proposals,” she said.
Mr Lake called on the Town Hall to reject the current application and insist on retaining a shop on the site, even if the rest of the block is rebuilt. The council already has a planning policy specifically designed to protect the bookshops in Bloomsbury in an effort to preserve the area’s character and reputation for booksellers. “They should follow their policy – either they want to retain small businesses that retain a character of an area or they couldn’t care less,” he said.
Mr Lake owns the Jarndyce Antiquarian Booksellers in Great Russell Street and produces an annual pamphlet detailing all of the bookshops in the area.
Marchmont is recognised as a rarity within the bookselling field and is one of just a handful of old bookshops to retain a “dusty, scruffy and disorderly” charm, said enthusiast Pat O’Toole.
Planners are due to make a decision on the site later this month.
CHARLOTTE CHAMBERS