The High Quarterly

Dear Rebecca,

It was very nice to hear from you and we've all had a look at your online paper which is really great and definitely something to be proud of. We'd love to be a part of it, so I'll tell you a little about our shop and hope that I do Hatchards' illustrious history justice.

So Hatchards St Pancras is very exciting and new. We opened in August, and we are the sister shop of Hatchards Piccadilly which opened in 1797 and is the oldest bookshop in London. Both Hatchards sit next to a Fortnum & Mason which is quite good fun. Hatchards and Fortnums both have a royal warrant which means we are booksellers to the queen, although Elizabeth hasn't wandered in yet.

Previously there had been other branches of Hatchards, but there has just been the one on Piccadilly for quite a long time so it is exciting for us to open a second branch. We only had four days to put the whole shop together before our launch party which as you can imagine meant a lot of stress and a lot of hard work. But we are all very proud of the shop and it was well worth it. One of our aims is to incorporate the history and tradition of Hatchards within a modern and exciting new shop. It's quite fitting therefore that we are here in St Pancras. I don't know if you've seen the station itself but it has beautiful old architecture with a very modern finish. One way in which our shop is slightly different is that we serve coffee and cake as well as books! This sounds like a very modern idea, but actually Hatchards started as a literary coffee house where people could meet to discuss political and literary ideas and distribute political pamphlets. Oscar Wilde and Laurie Lee were once customers!

Now what's it like being in London. We probably couldn't feel more at the heart of it here in the middle of the station. There is always a buzz of people coming and going, and St Pancras runs the Eurostar so we have many customers looking for travel guides and London souvenirs. London is a very busy place to work and one thing I love about it is the interesting people we get to meet. Being in the centre of things means that it's not unusual for an author to wander in and offer to sign their books. There are many people in London who are genuinely passionate about keeping the bookshop trade alive which is really refreshing, and lots of our friends from surrounding bookshops have enjoyed coming to nose around.

I'll give you some links to some other information as well! 
Here's our Twitter account: https://twitter.com/Hatchards
Here's an article about our shop opening: http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/londons-oldest-bookshop-hatchards-gets-st-pancras-store-9640352.html
And here's another! : http://www.thebookseller.com/news/preview-hatchards-st-pancras-bookstore.html

It's really fantastic that you're all so passionate about books.

All the best,
Abigail Waite
Bookseller, Hatchards St Pancras

Image Source -   http://media.carbonated.tv/128146_story__hatchards.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Hatchards%2C_London%2C_2013.jpg