P&G Wells
Situated on Winchester’s historic College Street, P&G Wells has been a site for bookselling for nearly 300 years. We chat to them about the shop’s long literary legacy, their online bookshop and delivery service and what books tend to interest their customers the most. Read on to learn more!
1. Winchester has a rich literary history, and your bookshop has been around for almost 300 years. Jane Austen famously lived three doors down from the shop! How does it feel to work in such a historic setting for bookselling?
There is a huge responsibility in taking care of what we believe to be Britain’s oldest surviving bookshop. It has traded from this site since 1789, before which it was next door. My role is as much custodian and maintenance manager as it is bookseller.
2. P&G Wells offers more than just bookselling on site. You have an online bookshop with a delivery service, and you sell stationery, stock library collections, and organise literary events. How do these extra services add to the nature of the bookshop as a whole?
Ever since our earliest record, an invoice from 1729 for stationery supplied to Winchester College, we have continually adapted to the times. While medicines and insurance policies are no longer part of our offer, we realise the importance of having many strings to our bow. The College is still an important customer, along with other schools across Hampshire and beyond. A few weeks ago, we shipped two pallets of books – more than the entire stock of some bookshops – to a British school on the other side of Europe.
Although closed during much of 2020, our loyal customers insisted we were essential retail, so we launched online sales through our own website and bookshop.org, supported by home deliveries all over Hampshire by bike – my daily exercise.
It is great that offsite events are now picking up as a way to reach new customers. We have a hectic schedule of pop-up bookshops in schools and other venues lined up that will keep us busy well into 2024.
3. What sort of books do you find your customers are most interested in? Have you noticed any recent trends?
We aim to stock a diverse range of titles that will appeal to our loyal customers. As well as local interest titles and of course our extensive range of Jane Austen, history and other social sciences, classics and both adult and younger fiction generally do well. Our growing selection of fantasy, classic retellings, feminist and LGBQIA+ titles is proving popular.
4. What is your favourite/ least favourite part about being a bookseller?
As an independent, one of my favourite aspects of bookselling is the opportunity to pick a selection of titles from a wide range of publishers. One of my least favourites is returning those that haven’t succeeded in finding the right customer. That, paying the bills and sorting out maintenance of our aging building.
5. And finally, do you have any exciting plans for the shop in the coming months that you would like to share with us?
Until last Christmas we had a conservation bookbinder working in the old coach house behind the bookshop. Now that they have retired, we plan to turn the bindery into an event space and a showcase for our long heritage of publishing and printing as well as bookselling. While there is a lot of work to do, we hope to have it ready well before our 300th anniversary in 2029!