Holman's Bookshop

Holman's opened in November 1920, when Ernest and Ada Holman, a grocer and a schoolteacher, bought an established newsagent's on Skinner Street. Five years later they took over the shop next door, and the combined premises, a Grade II listed building put up in 1768 by brothers John and William Skinner, now form the bookshop known today. The stock spreads across three floors and covers books, stationery, greetings cards, toys and jigsaws. Its card department won a RETAS Award in 2016 for Best Independent Bookstore Retailer of Greetings Cards. Angela O'Connor now owns the business, the seventh set of owners in its history. Past decades saw the shop run a subscription lending library until 1960 and a record department in the 1980s, both long since folded back into general stock.