Before heading back to our hotel after walking over 10 miles and visiting parts of London we hadn’t been to before, we made time for a quick trip to Waterstone’s in Tottenham Court Road.
Set over three floors, this stores was opened in 2015 and has a pop-up cinema and a bar in the basement! It has an industrial feel about it, with metal structural beams, concrete posts and exposed lighting cables – it works!
After a quick drink at the o2 Arena, we left the Greenwich area and headed towards Fitzrovia/Bloomsbury area where we were to take part in the pub crawl later that evening. We headed to Gower Street to the Waterstones there. Originally it was Dillon’s bookshop and was bought by Una Dillon in 1936. It is a simply stunning building.
These are just a selection of the photos I took here. I definitely want to go back when I have more time – such an amazing store!
The second store in Canary Wharf is in Cabot Place. We didn’t have much time here as we wanted to get across to the Royal Docks to go on the Emirates Air Line but we did have time to pop into Waterstones to buy a couple of pop-up maps for our upcoming trip to Bruges and Brussels.
The Emirates Airline is great – if you haven’t been on it before and you get the chance I heartily recommend it.
We’re climbing over the 02 Arena later this year. Eeek!
We went to London for the bank holiday weekend. A couple of friends had bought me a Literary Pub Crawl for my birthday so we thought we’d make a long weekend of it. We were heading to the Emirates Air Line and decided to stop off at Canary Wharf as neither of us had been to that part of London before. There are two Waterstones branches in Canary Wharf – the first one is at Jubilee Place. We liked this branch – it’s lovely, light and modern looking, as you’d expect.
Canary Wharf is wonderful – we had a great visit and would like to go back again some time.
Reading: Holding by Graham Norton – a surprisingly good read.
After leaving Yeovil we visited Taunton. Taunton is the County town of Somerset (and home of Somerset Cricket Club) – the Waterstones here is in the old County Hotel and is rather nice inside (so as a result there are rather a lot of pictures…! )
The ‘bird’ artwork is by Natalie Parsley – her website can be found here.
After leaving Taunton we headed home through Cheddar Gorge. It’s gorgeous, but rather touristy! There are caves to visit – they’re owned and managed by Lord Bath’s son, who also manages Longleat, and as such are rather expensive – I haven’t been there yet, but people do say they’re worth it.
Yeovil is a small town in south west Somerset – only about 30 miles from our house but not somewhere we tend to visit these days – there isn’t a great deal there that we can’t get closer to home. I used to visit more in the 1990s when my mother-in-law and sister-in-law lived nearby. The Waterstones here used to be an Ottakars. I miss Ottakars!
I keep forgetting to write what I was reading at the time. On this day I was reading Hot Milk by Deborah Levy in paperback and The Misses Mallet by E H Young on Kindle.
My friend Tracy (ironically from Aberdeen – some 500+ miles away from the city!) told me that the Poppy Exhibition that is travelling round the UK would be in Cardiff Bay during August and September, so we decided to head to Cardiff for a visit.
The Waterstones here is in the city centre and set over two floors. It has a lovely cafe upstairs – the Welsh cakes (well, when in Wales…) are delicious! Cardiff is a great city – lots of lovely arcades, and of course, its very own castle!
The illustrator Chris Riddell has drawn a picture on the wall of the landing on the stairs!
After leaving the city centre we went to Cardiff Bay to see the Poppies which were stunning. They were on the side of the Welsh Assembly building. Cardiff Bay is gorgeous – a definite must when visiting the city.
Bristol is one of our closest cities so we often visit this branch of Waterstones (they do the best carrot cake in the world!). Bristol is a fab city (the 10th largest in the UK) – the Waterstones here is in a shopping centre called The Galleries, which opened in 1991. It is rather dated now, but seemed like the height of sophistication at the time!!
We visited a couple of secondhand bookshops in St Nicholas’ Market on this trip – it’s a great market with loads of stalls inside and out (including lots of food stands) and definitely worth a visit.
Our final stop of the weekend saw us visiting Waterstones at Petersfield in Hampshire where we had decided to stop for a late lunch. Petersfield is a very pretty town. Sadly, being a Sunday we arrived shortly before closing time so we only had time to visit the shop and then find a pub for lunch.
I have been forgetting to post what I was reading – on this occasion we were listening to Call for the Dead by John le Carré, the first of his books to feature the character George Smiley. Despite it obviously being dated it was a good yarn!
After leaving Tunbridge Wells our route took us past Haywards Heath. I haven’t visited this town before, but we didn’t stop to look round as we still had around 130 miles of non-motorway journey ahead of us and knew we’d need to stop to eat! The store here is on a fairly busy main road. If we’re ever in the area again we may stop to explore further. I like to look round places when we’re on a Waterstones quest!
Janet's Adventures in Waterstones 