After so many years, I have my first visit to Hatchards of Piccadilly, England’s oldest bookshop

Hatchards, the oldest bookshop in England, was founded by John Hatchard on Piccadilly since 1797 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

Hatchards is the oldest bookshop in England and has been on Piccadilly since 1797, when the shop was founded by John Hatchard. So, I cannot understand why I never stepped through its doors until I was in Piccadilly yesterday.

Of course, I have walked past Hatchards many times before and have been along Piccadilly throughout my life. Most memorably, I spent working time in Piccadilly when the Athens News commissioned me to write a major two-page feaure on ‘Byzantium 330-1453’, an exhibition hosted by the Royal Academy of Arts in the Main Galleries in Burlington House for five months in 2008-2009.

I have been to Hatchards other outlet at Saint Pancras station last year, when Charlotte and I were on our way to Paris, yet somehow I had missed the shop on Piccadilly all my life. But then, there are many places I have never visited on Piccadilly, including Fortum and Mason, right next door to Hatchards.

The street façade of the Piccadilly wing of Burlington House reflected in the windows of Hatchards, the oldest bookshop in Britain (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

I was in Piccadilly yesterday with the Anglican mission agency USPG and the publisher SPCK for the celebrations of Founder’s Day in Saint Jame’s Church. And, of course, on Charlotte’s recommendation, I spent some time afterwards in Hatchards, which is prominently located between Saint James’s and Fortum and Mason and across the street from Burlington House.

SPCK is one of England’s oldest publishers – founded by Thomas Bray in 1698, it is older than John Murray (1768), and younger only than Cambridge University Press (1534) and Oxford University Press (1586). It seemed only right, after celebrating with one of England’s oldest publishers, to then spend some time too in England’s oldest bookshop.

Hatchards has had a shop on Piccadilly for 228 years. The business was founded by the bookseller and publisher John Hatchard ((1769-1849) at 173 Piccadilly in 1797. John Hatchard was still in his 20s when he took over the bookshop at 173 Piccadilly formerly run by Richard White and bought a collection of merchandise from a bookseller Simon Vandenbergh.

The shop moved along Piccadilly in 1801, to No 189-190, and the street number of the second shop changed to No 187 in 1820. Meanwhile, the site of the first shop had been cleared in 1810 to build the Egyptian Hall.

Hatchard had deep religious views and was an abolitionist and he became the main publisher for works associated with the Clapham Sect. William Wilberforce, Sir Walter Scott, Sir John Hawkins and Lord Spencer were among the figures of the day who frequented Hatchard’s back parlour. Sydney Smith writing in the Edinburgh Review in 1810, described Hatchard’s visitors as ‘a set of well-dressed, prosperous gentlemen, assembling daily at the shop well in with the people in power, delighted with every existing institution and with every existing circumstance.’

Hatchard died at Clapham Common in 1849, and there is a memorial to him in Saint Paul’s Church, Clapham. His grandson, George Josiah Palmer (1828-1892), was the founder and editor of the Church Times.

Later in the 19th century, Hatchards was Oscar Wilde’s favourite bookshop, and he signed his books sitting at the ground floor main table – still known today as ‘Oscar’s Table’.

Hatchards was bought for £6,000 by the convicted fraudster Clarence Hatry (1888-1965). Ten years earlier, the fall of the Hatry group which had been worth about £24 million (equivalent to £1,840 million today), contributed to the Wall Street crash of 1929. Hatry turned around the ailing business at Hatchards, and in 1946 he also acquired the publishers T Werner Laurie Ltd. Within four years, he owned the largest retail book business in London.

Hatchards was acquired by William Collins & Sons in 1956, and it expanded its number of retail outlets in the 1980s, opening branches across the United Kingdom. It was bought by Pentos in 1990. Pentos, in turn, was acquired by Waterstones who rebranded all the shops apart from Hatchards on Piccadilly. Waterstones also owns Hodges Figgis in Dublin, which was founded in 1768 and is the oldest bookshop in Ireland.

Today, Hatchards has a reputation for attracting high-profile authors and holds three royal warrants. The shop opened its new outlet in St Pancras station in 2014, beside a new branch of Fortnum and Mason, continuing a pairing that goes back over two centuries. A third shop opened in Cheltenham in 2022.

‘Oscar’s Table’ on the ground floor … Hatchards was Oscar Wilde’s favourite bookshop and he signed his books sitting at the main table (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Hatchards is no ordinary Waterstone’s shop – it is a unique British institution and a landmark building on Piccadilly. It is familiar to many with its curving bay windows and its prominently displayed royal warrants above the front doors. Inside, the shop has a grand, four-storey staircase and mementos of the past through the building, with historic photographs, old catalogues, Oscar Wilde’s table, which continues to be used for book signings, and an anonymous painting said to be a portrait of the founder John Hatchard.

The shop also displays an array of first editions from Margaret Atwood, Samuel Beckett, Ted Hughes, DH Lawrence and Iris Murdoch. The shop continues to host regular book signings and author events. Indeed, many of those authors are also regular customers, and the shop remains a literary haven for authors.

As for the Egyptian Hall on Piccadilly, built in 1812 on the site of the first Hatchards shop, it became a venue for exhibitions, popular entertainments and lectures, and became known as ‘England’s Home of Mystery’. But after less than a century, it was demolished in 1905 to make way for flats and offices.

Hatchards is the oldest bookshop in England. But it is not the oldest bookshop on these islands. That accolade goes to Hodges Figgis on Dawson Street in Dublin, which was founded in 1768, and is the third-oldest functioning bookshop in the world, after the Livraria Bertrand in Lisbon (1732) and Pennsylvania’s Moravian Book Shop (1745).

Hodges Figgis opened in Dublin in 1768 at 10 Skinner’s Row, near Christ Church Cathedral, and has had many addresses since then, including 32 Grafton Street (1797), 104 Grafton Street (1819), 20 Nassau Street (1920), 6-7 Dawson Street (1945), and Saint Stephen’s Green (1974). Since 1979, Hodges Figgis has been at 56-58 Dawson Street, the former Browne and Nolan bookshop. Like Hatchards, Hodges Figgis is now owned and operated by Waterstones. But then, so too are Dillons and Foyles in London and Blackwell’s in Oxford.

Hopefully, Hatchards, and all those other unique bookshops, maintain their style and presence for generations to come. And, hopefully, I shall be back in Hatchards the next time I am in Piccadilly.

Hatchards is familiar to many with its curving bay windows and creative window displays (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Back in Athens after 11 years for a city break

A view of the Acropolis from the apartment on Karaisaki Street in Athens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017; click on image for full-screen view)

Patrick Comerford

I am taking a short city break in Athens, thanks to a very generous present last Christmas. I am spending the next three days in a fifth-floor apartment on Karaisaki Street in the Psiri area, only five minutes walking distance from Monastiraki metro station, and close to the Acropolis.

I travelled on an early-morning Ryanair flight from Dublin and arrived in Athens late at lunchtime.

I have been in Greece, on average, three times every two years since the 1980s, and this is my third time in Greece in the space of 13 or 14 months, including holidays in Crete in June and July. But this is my first visit to Athens since 2006.

I first visited Athens in 1989, and when I was working as a journalist I was a regular visitor to Athens, sometimes visiting the Greek capital twice a year, writing for The Irish Times on political, cultural and religious life.

Later, I visited Athens for family reasons, to research the lives of Irish Philhellenes, and during stopovers on visits to Church and mission projects in Egypt. Later still , I even contributed to the late-lamented Athens News in 2009 before it closed in 2012, and from Rethymnon in 2013 to EnetEnglish, a division of the Athens-based newspapers, Eleftherotypia (Ελευθεροτυπία).

A lot has changed since 2006. I have booked a visit to the new Acropolis Museum tomorrow morning, and a walking tour of the Acropolis, all within walking distance of the apartment.

Although this is supposed to be a city break, I hope to see at first-end the effects of the Greek economic crisis on the streets of Athens, to see the work of Canon Malcolm Bradshaw and the parishioners of Saint Paul’s Anglican church on Athens with refugees, migrants and asylum seekers.

I am also conscious, with the ugly displays of the far-right on the streets of America in the past week, that this year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the coup that brought an end to democracy in Greece and brought the colonels to power in 1967 with the active intervention of the CIA and American might.

I am thinking this evening of the heroic resistance of political, artistic, musical and literary figures who stood up fascism in their own country and responded to the moral compunction to take a stand at great personal cost.

Later this year, the great Greek singer Maria Farantouri (Μαρία Φαραντούρη) celebrates her 70th birthday on 28 November 1947. She was one of the many notable voices that was active against the junta (1967-1974), when she worked with Greek composers such as Mikis Theodorakis, and poets such as George Seferis.

During the weekend, I may also get to see two streets in central Athens names after two Irish Philhellenes. Despite its spelling, Tzortz Street (Οδός Τζορτζ), often transliterated as George Street, is named after Sir Richard Church from Cork, who was commander-in-chief of the Greek army and a senator. This street is off Akadimias Street (Οδός Ακαδημίας) close to Omonia and the Polytechnic.

Eduardo Lo Street, off Panepistimiou Street (Οδός Πανεπιστημίου, ‘University Street’), is named after Sir Edward Law, who was born in Rostrevor, Co Down, and spent his childhood in Dublin. He was the Greek Finance Minister in the late 19th century is credited with rescuing Greece from one of its early economic crises.

I am also a short distance from Richard Church’s house in Adrianou Street in the Plaka, on the northern slopes of the Acropolis, from his grave, and from Saint Paul's Church, where there are windows and memorials dedicated to his memory.

I am thinking of having dinner somewhere in the Plaka this evening. Join me over the next few days as I walk around the streets of Athens and get to know the city again.

A view of ancient Athens from the apartment on Karaisaki Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

A taste of heaven on earth

A perfume brazier in the form of a domed building, from Constantinople or Italy, late 12th century. Photograph © Procuratoria di San Marco/ Cameraphoto Arte, Venice

A major exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts spotlights the wonders of the Byzantine Empire, from the foundation of Constantinople in AD 330 to its fall in 1453.

By Patrick Comerford

In the English-speaking world, Byzantium represents political intrigue and decadence, on one hand, or, on the other, the height of cultural achievement and spiritual awakening. For W.B. Yeats, in Sailing to Byzantium, it embodied the mystery and splendour of our culture:

… I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium …

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

And so it is hard to believe that the current exhibition in London on the splendours of the Byzantine Empire, “Byzantium 330-1453,” hosted by the Royal Academy of Arts, is the first major exhibition of its kind in Britain for half a century.

This exhibition, organised in conjunction with the Benaki Museum in Athens, includes priceless items never before seen in public. There are more than 300 objects, including icons, parchments, frescoes, mosaics, sanctuary doors, ivories, children’s clothes and works in gold and silver, with rare items from monasteries, museums and collections across Europe, Russia, Ukraine, Egypt and the US.

Visitors are invited along a chronological path, from the foundation of the city by Constantine in 330 to its fall in 1453. We see the wonders of Byzantium through a variety of themes as we explore the origins of Byzantium, the rise of Constantinople, the ravages of iconoclasm, the post-iconoclast revival, the great crescendo in the Middle Ages, and the close links between Byzantine and early Renaissance art in Italy.

The exhibition traces the history of Byzantine art, documents its patrons and artists, and unveils their world. Despite its fall to the Crusaders, the city later blossomed in a final revival of creativity, and works from Constantinople, the Balkans, Ukraine and Russia show the final phase of distinctively Orthodox forms and functions.

The exhibition opens appropriately with visitors standing beneath a large 13th or 14th century copper chandelier or choros. Now in a museum in Munich, it once hung in the central dome of a Byzantine basilica or church, and is a first reminder that Byzantium was essentially enlightened by the light of Christianity and enriched by the liturgy, icons, rituals and music.

The Antioch Chalice, lent by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Photograph © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

When the Antioch Chalice, on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, was first discovered around 1911, it was touted as the Holy Grail or chalice used by Christ at the Last Supper. From Saint Mark’s Treasury in Venice there is the ornate Chalice of the Patriarchs, and an elaborate silver perfume brazier or burner in the shape of a multi-domed church. There are unique, two-sided icons from the Byzantine Museum in Kastoria and the Icon Gallery in Ohrid. From the State Historical Museum in Moscow comes the Khludov Psalter from Constantinople, dating from soon after 843, with the parchment open at an image of an iconoclast rejoicing at the crucifixion of Christ.

It is too easy to mourn that so much of Byzantium was either first destroyed by the iconclasts or later dispersed throughout the world. But the imaginative selection of works from across the Mediterranean basin, the Balkans and Europe and beyond shows the far-spread influence of Byzantium. But it is surprising that such a comprehensive exhibition can include so many exhibits from the British Museum in London, yet has no items from Mount Athos, Patmos or Mystras – how can Byzantium be understood or imagined without seeing their place and contribution?

Russian works – including an embroidered icon from Moscow, woven to advance the city’s claim to be the Third Rome – might have provided the historical departure point for the exhibition. Instead, just as it opened with a realisation of the over-arching influences of the liturgy on Byzantine life, the exhibition closes with a dramatic presentation of the place of the splendour of iconography with a collection of icons from Mount Sinai. On Mount Sinai, iconography survived iconoclasm as an unexpected consequence of the Muslim conquest of Egypt in 640-642, and Mount Sinai later contributed to a new flowering of iconography and to western art through the Sinaitic School of Saint Catherine in Iraklion on Crete.

Icon of the Heavenly Ladder of Saint John Klimakos, late 12th century, from Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai

Appropriately, the final treasure is the 12th century Icon of the Heavenly Ladder of Saint John Klimakos. It is so well-known, viewers are amazed it is so small (41.1 x 29.1 cm). Yet this one small icon is a reminder that the secret in Byzantium’s splendour lies in its ability to bridge the chasm between earth and heaven.

Byzantium 330-1453 continues at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, until 22 March: www.royalacademy.org.uk/byzantium

Canon Patrick Comerford is an Irish priest, writer and theologian. This review was first published in the Athens News on 9 January 2009, pp 26-27.