Ship of the Fens

So earlier this week I was very excited to discover a new alleyway in Cambridge, which held not only an excellent little cafe but also The Haunted Bookshop. Hidden away in St Edward’s Passage, just off King’s Parade, the Cambridge Tab sums it up just beautifully:

‘Neglected and disorganised though it may seem, everything about this higgledy-piggledy alcove of literature has its place. There are two floors. The first is devoted to teetering piles of second-hand poetry; kickable columns of prose. The second, accessed by a creaking red-carpeted staircase, displays what the store owners have termed ‘juvenile fiction’. Its cave-like interior houses a treasure trove of long-lost Milly Molly Mandys and Enid Blytons, and the walls are lined with occasional faded posters and placards. It feels like a nod to the wartime generation that we may only have heard wistfully whispered of by our grandparents.’

Most excitingly of most, a number of boxes out the front hold illustration plates from books that were just a little too far gone to be saved- I managed to pick up a number of beautiful plates from Arthur Rackham, one of my top artists ever ever ever- and the rest of the shop is dedicated to second hand, antique and illustrated tomes that I swear I’m going to spend my entire year’s salary on one day.

I also got rather excited over the name, before the gentleman behind the counter told me that there were no ghosts, but it was instead named after The Haunted Bookstore by Christopher Moreley. After some prying, I found a whole host of alternative ghost stories about the building and I think I’ll quite happily be suckered into believing those instead.

(photo by louisathomson)