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The second branch of Waterstones' iconic London Hatchards bookstore will open in St Pancras station today (1st August).
An exclusive preview look inside the store ahead of its opening to the public revealed a modern, stylish twist on the 217-year-old Hatchards identity, with customers welcomed with a neon sign in the traditional typography headlining two double-doored entrances, framed by brick arches.
The new store will offer customers the option of ordering a book by 3pm and being able to pick the title up by 5pm the same day, with those orders fulfilled by the larger Hatchards Piccadilly store.
As Waterstones’ retail manager for London Luke Taylor told The Bookseller, this secondary Hatchards will play more to international tourists flocking to Europe on the Eurostar as well as “erudite Londoners”. To this end, a range of London travel titles and London-themed gift products greet visitors on the right of the entrance, while newly-released titles flank the left. Spotlights suspended from the roof illuminate titles in the store’s different sections, which unfold to the left and right of the gangway as customers walk deeper into the shop. Original Hatchards tables showcase titles, blending the old with the new. The main cavity of the room contains the wider fiction section, which revolves around Hatchard’s traditional hardback and signed stock offering. For this, the original Hatchards on Piccadilly will act as a feeder for the smaller 2,000 sq ft St Pancras store.
“Signed stock will be in abundance here,” Taylor said. “Customers can expect to find their signed copies by Julian Barnes, Ian McEwan…Hatchards has been historically very old-fashioned and with this shop, we are appealing to classic Hatchards customers but also to a more modern reader base as well.”
Among its 15,000 titles, the new Hatchards store also contains a significant travel section, with translated fiction interspersed with foreign travel books. A substantial children’s section also occupies the back left corner, and the shop’s official opening weekend on 9th August will involve a weekend of literary events – storytelling, competitions and live characters - themed around Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit after Hatchards is reported to be the first ever stockist of the classic children’s book.
Most importantly, Hatchards plans to be a hub of year-round author events, bringing a sense of literary theatre to the station as a whole, with book singings taking place outside as well as inside the store. “We are fortunate in that we can use the upper palladium of Hatchards to hold author events, which will be absolutely great for us,” Taylor said. “We plan to hold debut author signings in store.”
In an enticing addition, the bookshop will also have a license to serve wine and coffee to customers whilst they browse (although this feature may not be in operation on the opening day). “Wine and browsing books works very well together and it is a way of encouraging people to spend more time in shops, enjoy browsing the books in the shops with their wine,” Taylor said. “There will be tables outside for people to sit and drink coffee or wine and read their books.”
The staff team includes manager Jonny Green and booksellers Abigail Waite, Hannah Oldham, Jack Rogers, Holly Popple, Liam Bowden and Grace Bullen.
The new Hatchards opens the morning after the St Pancras branch of Foyles closes. Wendy Spinks, commercial director of St Pancras, said: “From our point of view, we were very keen to ensure we retained a bookstore within the station.” She added: “Waterstones have been very creative about how they have fitted out the store and we are very excited about the new opening.”
It took four weeks to fit out and 72 hours to fit with books.
Waterstones managing director James Daunt said it was “nice” to have the Hatchards brand as part of the company’s portfolio of stores and said it inspired staff morale. “We are developing this really nice energy at Waterstones and I think that has something to do with the shops changing,” he said. “Our London shops, they really are so dramatically different to what they were two years ago.”
In terms of opening up other brands within the Waterstones company, like The Southwold Bookshop, Daunt said: “We will open new brands intelligently and do what seems best in a given location. Any new shops in the main will Waterstones stores because Waterstones has a very strong identity. But having said that, we clearly have an appetite to do different things.”