ReadingLasses Bookshop& Cafe

Dr Jacqui Robertson has owned ReadingLasses on South Main Street in Wigtown since 2015, running what is the only bookshop in Britain stocking exclusively titles written by women. The front room holds around 10,000 books spanning art, travel, science and eighteenth and nineteenth century women writers alongside contemporary prize-winners. Robertson, trained originally as a scientist, treats her cafe's baking as a research project of sorts, producing cakes in flavours such as rose and pistachio or tahini and lime alongside scones, soda bread and soup. During Wigtown Book Festival the kitchen turns out roughly 1,600 cups of coffee and 500 litres of soup. The shop opened in the years following Wigtown's 1998 designation as Scotland's National Book Town.