Topping and Company’s bookshop in Bath is on the move.
The independent bookseller has announced that, after 14 happy years on the Paragon, they will be moving to the magnificent Georgian building formerly known as the Friends Meeting House.
The location – opposite the Bath Abbey on York Street – will place the bookshop right in the centre of Bath.
Becoming a bookshop will be an exciting new chapter for a building that has a rich historic legacy. Designed in 1817 by William Wilkins, architect of The National Gallery, for use as a Masonic Hall, it was an assembly room and non-conformist chapel during the 1830s and has since been in the hands of the Religious Society of Friends.
It is a listed building of significant architectural heritage, and one of the few remaining examples of the Greek revival style in Bath. We will be treating it with great care and sensitivity and look forward to opening it up as a public space for everyone to enjoy.
In a press release the company says the new bookshop “would have a mezzanine and multiple floors, lined with handcrafted bookcases and our signature rolling library ladders (scroll down for a picture!), allowing us to offer a huge selection of fiction, children’s books, cookery writing, history and much more.
With a much larger space we’ll also be able to host many more of the biggest names in the literary world in the bookshop itself – and of course there will also be plenty of lovely spaces for you to sit and enjoy a complimentary pot of tea and coffee too!
Click here to view all the planning details– and, if you would like, please do feel free to leave a comment of support.
While this year has been tough for us all, here at the bookshop we remain very optimistic about the future for Bath and for independent bookselling. There are certainly some new challenges ahead that we didn’t expect when we began thinking about this project at the start of the year, but we’re very excited about the move and hope you are too!
Although the bookshop on the Paragon is closed for in-person browsing at the moment, we are very much open for Click & Collect as well as postal orders. We’ve been working to make our website catalogue more comprehensive, so please do let us know what you think. We’re also here every day 8.30am – 7pm for recommendations over the phone or by email.“
