Heywood Hill

Heywood Hill
IndustryBookshop
Founded1936; 89 years ago (1936)
FounderGeorge Heywood Hill
Headquarters10 Curzon Street, London, W1
Websiteheywoodhill.com

Heywood Hill is a bookshop at 10 Curzon Street, in the Mayfair district of London.[1]

History

Blue plaque commemorating Nancy Mitford, who worked at the bookshop during the Second World War

The shop was opened by George Heywood Hill on 3 August 1936, with the help of Lady Anne Gathorne-Hardy, who would later become his wife.[2][3]

For the last three years of the Second World War, while George Heywood Hill was in the Army, Lady Anne ran the shop with the assistance of the novelist Nancy Mitford.[4] In 1949 Elizabeth Forbes, the daughter of Admiral Sir Charles Forbes, joined the staff of the store where she worked prior to her career as a journalist, music critic, and musicologist.[5] In the period following Heywood Hill's retirement, the shop was managed by Handasyde Buchanan, a notable contributor to books on natural history who had joined the shop in 1945.[6] John Saumarez Smith, who had joined the staff straight from Cambridge in 1965, took up the reins as manager in 1974 following Buchanan's retirement, a position he held for over thirty years.[7] In 1991, the shop was bought by Nancy Mitford's brother-in-law, Andrew Cavendish, 11th Duke of Devonshire.[8]

Since 2016, the shop has been owned by Mitford's nephew Peregrine Cavendish, 12th Duke of Devonshire. It has been managed by his son-in-law, Nicky Dunne since 2011.[9] Heywood Hill specialises in rare books and collections of books, and has a service of assembling and delivering bespoke libraries for customers.[1] It has been described as the late Queen's favourite bookshop.[10]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Sarah Lyall (2 February 2016). "The Tiny London Shop Behind Some of the Very Best Libraries". The New York Times. Retrieved 6 February 2016. London's Heywood Hill curates impressive collections for discerning customers in 60 different countries — and specializes in the obscure.
  2. ^ Alison Flood (30 September 2016). "Prize of a lifetime: London bookshop offers free books for the rest of your life | Books". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 July 2017.
  3. ^ "About - Heywood Hill". heywoodhill.com. Retrieved 7 February 2016.
  4. ^ "Lady Anne Hill". The Independent. 31 January 2007. Retrieved 11 July 2017.
  5. ^ Elaine Padmore (19 November 2014). "Elizabeth Forbes: Musicologist and critic who translated librettos and wrote nearly 100 obituaries for 'The Independent'". The Independent.
  6. ^ "The Interviews - John Saumarez Smith". Sheila Markham. December 2003. Retrieved 13 February 2024.
  7. ^ "John Saumarez Smith obituary". The Times. 18 November 2021. Retrieved 15 February 2022.
  8. ^ Christopher Hibbert; Ben Weinreb (2008). The London Encyclopaedia. Macmillan. pp. 395–396. ISBN 978-1-4050-4924-5. Retrieved 11 July 2017.
  9. ^ Fletcher, Mansel (28 July 2014). "My Space: Mr Nicky Dunne". Mr Porter. Archived from the original on 1 December 2017. Retrieved 11 July 2017.
  10. ^ Kerridge, Jake (10 November 2020). "How the Queen's favourite bookshop is surviving against the odds". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 10 November 2020.

Further reading

  • Hill, Heywood & Anne; Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy (ed.) A Bookseller's War (Michael Russell, 1998)
  • Saumarez Smith, John (ed.) A Spy in the Bookshop: Letters Between Heywood Hill and John Saumarez Smith 1966-1974 (Frances Lincoln, 2006)
  • Samuarez Smith, John (ed.) The Bookshop at 10 Curzon Street: Letters Between Nancy Mitford and Heywood Hill 1952-1973 (Frances Lincoln, 2004)

51°30′25″N 0°08′48″W / 51.5070°N 0.1466°W / 51.5070; -0.1466