Biblio-Text: The Bookbox

Rachel Holdsworth
By Rachel Holdsworth Last edited 161 months ago
Biblio-Text: The Bookbox
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The mural of local children's decorated tiles. It's only going to get bigger
The mural of local children's decorated tiles. It's only going to get bigger
Inside the bookshop part
Inside the bookshop part
Relax after all that hard painting
Relax after all that hard painting
After a party
After a party
Other people's artistry, including a baby's footsteps immortalised in clay (£25)
Other people's artistry, including a baby's footsteps immortalised in clay (£25)
Just waiting to be painted
Just waiting to be painted

Continuing our amble round London's independent bookshops

This may be our first bookshop visit where we're more interested in what lies beneath. The Bookbox is a great bookshop, doing a lot with a very small space, but in its basement is an unexpected treasure: a pottery painting studio. Open during the days on Fridays and weekends (and by arrangement on evenings for parties), you can nip down here, buy a plate, mug, vase or anything else they have on offer, paint it and the shop glazes and fires it for you. We saw an exquisite half-finished teapot that a local woman keeps coming back to work on - when it's finished and fired it will be astonishing.

It's thirsty work and you can buy a cup of tea or coffee for a quid, or go with friends and take your own booze. If you're really lucky, the owner might have baked. With schools increasingly no longer having their own kilns, this is a great place to get hands-on with some very accessible art. The Bookbox is also building a mural from tiles made by local kids, which we think is brilliant.

The Bookbox, 53 Chatsworth Road Hackney. Pottery studio is open Friday and Saturday 10am-6pm, Sunday 11am-4pm. There's a £3.50 studio fee + cost of item, ranging from £13 for a teapot to £3 to a Christmas stocking name plate. Images author's own. Know a good bookshop? Email us at londonist (@) gmail.com.


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Last Updated 17 October 2010