Celebrating 30 years at the UK’s oldest bookshop site

Nestled in the heart of Cambridge, UK, is the country’s oldest bookshop site. Passing from hand to hand over the centuries, 1 Trinity Street has been home to the Cambridge University Press Bookshop for 30 years.  

The shop has been selling books since 1581 when it was run by a William Scarlett. The first University printer, Thomas Thomas, was based just over the road on what was Regent Walk and is now Senate House Lawn, in an area that was really the bookselling centre of the town. In 1846 it was taken over by Daniel and Alexander Macmillan who employed their nephew Robert Bowes as an apprentice. He would later become partner and eventually take on the premises. The shop remained Bowes & Bowes until 1986 when it became Sherratt & Hughes.  

Cambridge took over the premises in 1992 and since then we have welcomed around one million customers and sold around three million items. When the shop first opened, it acted as a showroom for all 17,000 titles the Press published. Today, with around 50,000 books in print as well as many more ebooks and digital products, our bookshop offers a carefully curated selection of around 25,000 titles, keeping in mind those the team believe will have the biggest impact and attract new customers.  

To celebrate this 30-year milestone, we spoke to Alastair Lynn, Bookshop Business Lead, and Alice Tranah, Bookseller, about changes over the years, famous (and flying) visitors, favourite books and the future of the bookshop.  

What do you see as the role of the Bookshop?  

Alice: It’s a showroom for our titles but also a hub for the community, where we offer expert advice on our products, tourist information, and a space for solace and calm.  

How has the Bookshop changed over 30 years? 

Alice: It’s more customer focused now and has adapted well to the introduction of new technology, new ways of accessing content, and a broader remit than was intended 30 years ago. Customers are important to us, whether they are standing in front of us or are somewhere else in the world and we’ve worked on being able to serve all of them better. 

Alastair: I found the bookshop slightly intimidating when I first started working here.

Across the years we’ve worked hard to make it a more welcoming and inclusive space that customers can enjoy spending time in.

That has meant working on the look and feel of the shop and bringing in a range of stationery and gift items to supplement the book range. The changes have brought about a wider customer base with more people getting to see the important work that we publish.  

 
What do you think the Bookshop brings to Cambridge? 

Alastair: One of the things I’m most proud of is the heritage of the bookshop and the fact that we’re acting as custodians of that history.

There has been a bookshop on this site since the 1500’s and there are some incredible tales connected to it as you might imagine.

I think it’s important that we’re able to extend that run of bookselling history. And I hope that visitors to the city visit us to get a sense of that history but also see how vibrant and relevant what we offer as an organisation is. 

Alice: There is a strong group of independent traders in Cambridge that are bringing choice and character to the city centre. Having an attractive bookshop is important, and we’ve had a refit on our ground floor recently, where customers are enjoying a new, spacious layout. Customer service is also key, and it’s always a priority. 

Tell us about your customers. Have any famous people visited? 

Alastair: We have a huge mix of customers and that changes seasonally. Sadly, our number of English Language Teaching customers has declined sharply since the pandemic but we’re steadily rebuilding that market. Otherwise, we always serve both local and visiting academics, teachers, students, day trippers and international tourists. It’s so varied it’s almost impossible to identify ‘the average customer’!  

Alice: We’ve enjoyed meeting all sorts of famous people over the years, including Eddie Izzard, Stephen Fry, Dylan Moran, Bill Nighy, Simon Russell Beale, Stephen Hawking, Valerie Singleton, Germaine Greer, Toby Jones, Robert Plant and Sid Barrett to name a few! 

How has the bookshop weathered the challenges of Covid? 

Alice: We survived the restrictions put in place in the UK well as we continued to reach out to customers who couldn’t visit in person, and supported those who could with a welcoming, safe environment.

We spent a lot of time working with our team and with our health and safety colleagues to ensure we put in every measure we could to reassure and support our people.   

Alastair: It hasn’t been without its challenges, but our colleagues have been really resilient and worked hard to support each other and the customers. We’ve proven that we can pull together as a team to keep the show on the road.  

What’s the strangest thing that’s happened in the Bookshop? 

Alastair & Alice: It’s got to be the sparrowhawk that flew into the shop in October last year!  

What is your favourite thing about working in the Bookshop? 

Alastair: I love the variety. We get to do a surprisingly wide range of tasks from those that you’d expect any bookseller to do, to more creative marketing, and also working with people across the University in all kinds of surprising situations. 

Alice: The lovely staff and customers make it a wonderful place to work. I really enjoy the variety too.   

What’s your favourite Cambridge University Press book? 

Alastair: My favourite Cambridge book is Upheavals of Thought by Martha Nussbaum. I spent a lot of time with this book as a student but gained a lot from it for wider life as well as my academic studies. 

Alice: Central Cambridge by our own Kevin Taylor is a favourite of mine. The text is helpful and contains lovely pictures.  

What’s your favourite window display? 

Alice: Our bookseller, Justin, creates paper sculpture windows at Christmas and they’re simply stunning. I also love the ones where other members of staff have added their art. 

Alastair: We have great fun with our window displays and it’s a testament to the publishing list that we can create such vibrant displays. It’s hard to choose one particular favourite but I do have a soft spot for the Shakespeare window we did a few years back. 

How do you envision the Bookshop in five/ten years? 

Alastair: Working with an ever-larger customer base and selling even more books. We’d love to develop and improve the bookshop website which is relatively new but is already helping us extend our reach and learn new skills as booksellers. We’re also gradually changing the look of the bookshop as time and budget allows.

Alice: I really hope we’ll be able to sell digital products. I also hope we have a fully integrated e-commerce offering so we can offer the unique character of the Bookshop and our own customer service much further afield. We’ll need to keep developing, but without losing the heritage which our customers love. 

We really want it to be a destination that everyone visiting Cambridge has on their ‘must-see’ list.  

Final thoughts on the bookshop and its future:  

Alice: Our Bookshop has always been staffed with people who are customer-focused. We value the talents and skills the team bring as individuals and when working together. The ideas come from within the team and we can respond quickly to introduce new promotions and activities. We understand our publishing and also our audience. We are part of a support network of local traders and can harness the advantages of that group. 

Alastair: Bookselling has always been a difficult business to succeed in and it’s been especially hard since Amazon joined the UK market in 1998. One of the great things to have come out of the pandemic though is the support that independent bookshops have received and been able to harness, creating something of a renaissance for bricks and mortar bookshops in the UK. This support has further been bolstered by Bookshop.org setting up in the UK with an explicit mission to financially support local, independent bookshops, and we’re proud to be part of that. As a bookshop we want to remain part of the local community, supporting our readers, and contributing to the diversity of voices represented on the high street.

With luck we can notch up another few hundred years selling books from No1 Trinity Street. 

Find out more about the Cambridge University Press bookshop and join in the 30th anniversary celebrations by following us on Instagram at @CambridgeBookshop