Craft guide
ORBISBOOKSELLERS & STATIONERS IN LONDON7 stores · curated ORBIS register
Covent Garden (21 Tower St, WC2H 9NS) / Online
Independent London stationer focused on fine papers, writing instruments, desk objects, wax seals and traditional paper goods.
Best for Beautiful papers, tempting Christmas decorations, charming desk accessories; in-house designed stationery rang
83–84 Marylebone High Street, London / Online
Daunt Books' Marylebone shop is a general bookseller with a particular interest in travel and books about places. Its ranges extend from fiction to travel guides, with books arranged by country forming part of the wider offer. The business began on Marylebone High Street in 1990, before expanding into other London neighbourhoods over subsequent years.
Best for Travel writing and general books in Marylebone
Daunt Books began on Marylebone High Street in 1990, before the business expanded into other London neighbourhoods. The Marylebone shop remains associated with travel reading, while operating as a general bookseller rather than selling guidebooks alone. Its wider catalogue includes fiction and books about places, giving travellers several ways to prepare for a destination.
Books by country form one route through the range, alongside conventional categories for novels and nonfiction. That distinction helps when the subject of a trip crosses several kinds of writing. A reader can consider a travel guide together with fiction set in the same place or an account of its history.
The store also serves readers who have no journey planned, through its general book selection and bookselling advice. A practical visit might begin with a particular author or subject and widen from there. Marylebone is a specific branch, so descriptions of the company's other shops need not apply to the same premises. The travel association is useful as a starting point, without restricting what someone can reasonably look for on its shelves.
London / Charing Cross Road
Foyles occupies the former Central Saint Martins building on Charing Cross Road, where the flagship relocated in 2014. Specialist departments cover general reading and language study, while Ray's Jazz adds records to the bookshop. A café and an auditorium occupy upper levels, with the latter hosting the shop's programme of events.
Best for Books, language-learning material and recorded music
Foyles moved its Charing Cross Road flagship into the former Central Saint Martins building in 2014. The new premises gave the bookshop a central atrium and a series of connected mezzanine levels. Three lifts provide an alternative to the staircases linking those levels through the building.
The departments give several reasons to visit beyond looking for a general reading recommendation. Fiction and children's books sit within a much wider range that includes specialist educational material. Ray's Jazz sells recordings on the second level, alongside classical music and sheet music departments. The language section incorporates Grant & Cutler, providing learning material and literature from publishers in many countries.
This is a bookshop where the department matters when planning what to look for. A visitor seeking language study material has a different destination from someone browsing music recordings or a new novel. The upper levels also contain a café and an auditorium used for literary events and other programmes. Those spaces extend a visit beyond the shelves without changing the store's primary role as a bookseller.
London / UK
Hand & Eye is a letterpress printing and publishing house founded by Phil Abel in Whitechapel, east London.
Best for Illustrated letterpress-printed books and jobbing print work from a Whitechapel
Hand & Eye is a letterpress printing and publishing house founded by Phil Abel in Whitechapel, east London. Its own site dates the operation precisely: "We started in 1985 as jobbing printers, and now print books and record sleeves that find their way to a world-wide audience." It cites the twentieth-century Curwen and Shenval presses in Britain, and Riverside and Stinehour in the United States, as the operations it drew inspiration from when it began.
Four decades on, the shop works from 12 Pinchin Street on two large-format Heidelberg platen presses and a FAG Control 525 proofing press, backed by an extensive collection of wood and metal type. Most current work is printed from photopolymer plates made in-house, letting the studio control every stage of a job from typesetting through to the finished sheet.
Hand & Eye's list of illustrated letterpress editions includes The Wind in the Willows and A Christmas Carol alongside newer titles such as Shadows of Time, The Woman in White, A Far Away Country, and Dear Edward, published for private-press collectors and general readers alike. Alongside its own books, the studio takes on commercial jobbing work, including catalogues for art galleries, keeping the letterpress operation earning its keep between editions the way it has since 1985.
London / United Kingdom
New North Press is a working letterpress studio in Shoreditch, at 45 Coronet Street, where hand-printed cards, limited-edition posters, books and portfolios come off vintage presses rather than digital plates.
Best for Hand-printed cards, limited-edition posters and letterpress classes
New North Press is a working letterpress studio in Shoreditch, at 45 Coronet Street, where hand-printed cards, limited-edition posters, books and portfolios come off vintage presses rather than digital plates. The studio's own description sets its terms plainly: it exists to combine "centuries-old craftsmanship with contemporary design ideas," and the type collection backs that up — more than 700 fonts spanning wood type, metal type, and even a 3D-printed letterpress face, kept in working order rather than displayed as artifacts.
Secondary reporting (Standpoint London, British Letterpress) traces the press to 1986, founded by Graham Bignell on New North Road before the move to its current Coronet Street address in 1993 — the name outlived the original street. That continuity matters in a trade where most commercial letterpress equipment was scrapped decades ago; a studio still running the type and the presses, not just collecting them, is the exception rather than the rule in a city the size of London.
The press takes on commissioned print and design work alongside its own limited editions, and runs regular hands-on classes that teach typesetting and printing on the actual equipment rather than a simulation of it. That combination — production, commission work, and open instruction under one roof — is what separates a working letterpress house from a heritage display case.
London / Bloomsbury
Lamb's Conduit Street's feminist publisher — grey covers, forgotten women writers, and the bookshop that rediscovered mid-century female voices.
Best for Forgotten women writers, grey covers, feminist publishing.
London / Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane
Rough Trade East opened on 20 July 2007 in a former loading bay of the Old Truman Brewery, just off Brick Lane. It is the company's flagship UK store. David Adjaye designed the 5,000 square foot room with a coffee bar, a snug and record crates that wheel away for performances. Vinyl fills the greater part of the floor beside books and merchandise, and the stage hosts live events seven days a week.
Best for New vinyl and in-store gigs
Rough Trade opened its first shop in Notting Hill in 1976 and became a place to find new wave records and fanzines. The label of the same name split from the shops in 1982, and the two have run separately since. Rough Trade East was the company's answer to a bad decade for music retail. It opened on Friday 20 July 2007 in the former loading bay of the Old Truman Brewery on Dray Walk, off Brick Lane. Its 5,000 square feet made it the country's biggest music-only specialist store at the time. It replaced the cramped basement shop in Covent Garden, whose staff transferred east. The architect David Adjaye was a customer who had offered his services a decade earlier. He designed the room with old gin palaces in mind. A coffee bar greets the entrance and a cushioned bench runs along one wall under spoked fluorescent lights. Listening posts stand throughout. A snug with tables and sofas serves quizzes and workshops, and record crates on wheels roll aside for in-store performances. Director Stephen Godfroy argued at the opening that the high street had commoditised music. A side-street shop offering knowledgeable recommendation would find its audience, he said. The store remains the flagship of the UK chain. Vinyl takes the greater part of the floor. Books and merchandise fill the rest, and there is a bar and a photobooth. The stage hosts live events seven days a week and has held Sampha, Little Simz and The Hives.
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