We’ve now visited every Waterstones and Hatchards in mainland Great Britain currently listed on the Waterstones store locator (plus Foyles) – with the exception of the two new Waterstones inside John Lewis branches. We may pick those up one day. When Waterstones acquired Blackwell’s in February 2022, we chose not to include those shops, as it would have meant travelling back north to places we’d already visited. Altogether, we’ve visited 312 shops.
The journey began on Saturday 10th June 2017 with a trip to Bridport. The whole idea started with a throwaway comment from Hayley, a friend from a book forum. I’d mentioned popping into yet another branch and she said, “You should visit them all!” What began as a joke between my husband Peter and me slowly turned into a real quest.
I had originally planned to visit every branch everywhere, but we realised we’d never truly finish – branches keep opening (which is wonderful!). We have visited some of the non-mainland shops and will probably revisit Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and Amsterdam. We may even make it to the Isle of Man. But after we visited Berlin earlier this year, we decided to stop now; the world is big, and we want to explore more of Europe.
For more than eight years, we’ve planned all our holidays around visiting Waterstones shops, and it has been brilliant. We’ve travelled to places we never would have seen otherwise and discovered wonderful things along the way. I’ve used Wikipedia and various tourist sites for research, but all posts are written in my own words. I’m not much of a writer, but I hope the blog gives a real sense of the places we’ve been. It’s certainly evolved over time – the early posts focused only on the shops, not the wider locations.
My favourite Waterstones is probably the Bradford branch, housed in the stunning Victorian Wool Exchange that looks like a cathedral. But there are plenty of other beautiful buildings too – Reading’s former chapel and Swansea’s old cinema, to name just two.
This journey has taken us north, south, east and west. The furthest shop from home was in Elgin, Scotland (now closed), a full 557 miles away. The whole quest has been an absolute blast.
And at the risk of sounding like an awards-ceremony speech, I really do want to thank Hayley for the original suggestion, my good friend Tracy, who has followed my journey on WordPress and liked and commented on nearly every post – your support means so much, and to the other friends who have also made appearances. Finally, a huge thank-you to my husband Peter, who has accompanied me on most of these trips, and who “does a Hitchcock” by appearing in many of the photos. Thank you for all the driving!
Janet's Adventures in Waterstones 