Wigtown - Discovering what makes a great Book Town

On a recent visit to the sleepy coastal village of Port William, south-west Scotland, imagine my delight when I discovered that Wigtown, Scotland’s famous book town, was a mere ten minutes drive away. Twelve bookstores in one pretty rural location; I couldn’t wait to explore.

But what exactly makes a book town?

Well according to the all-knowing Wikipedia ‘A book town is a town or village with a large number of used book or antiquarian bookstores. These stores, as well as literary festivals, attract book-loving tourists’. Count me in!

Further Google searches revealed that Wigtown was in excellent company. Other globally recognised book towns include, where it all began - Hay-on-Wye, Wales; Hobart Book Village, New York; Fjaerland, Norway, with countries as disparate as Spain, Australia, Italy, Belgium, Malaysia and Canada all proudly encouraging the ‘Book Town’ philosophy.   

So why did Scotland choose Wigtown?

Well during my visit to The Old Bank Bookshop I had the pleasure of meeting the proprietors, Joyce and Ian Cochrane, along with their daughter Helena, where Joyce kindly explained that after the collapse of the local economy, when the town’s main employers, the whisky distillery and creamery, were forced to close, this remote rural town was struggling to survive. Fortunately, its regeneration was secured when Wigtown won a national search, beating off stiff competition, to create Scotland’s first book town. Booksellers, including Joyce and Ian, quickly snapped up empty premises, establishing over a dozen bookshops and highly successful literary festival.

Bookshops with personality...

Whilst I was browsing the five rooms of high quality antiquarian books on sale at

The Old Bank Bookshop, Joyce was keen to share that some 250 years ago, the building was used as a customs house, before it was bought, 100 years later by the City of Glasgow bank. However, records show the directors of the City of Glasgow bank were found guilty of indulging in some creative accounting and were sentenced to lengthy periods in jail – little changes! The original safe makes for an unusual feature in this truly unique bookstore.

Crossing the wide main street, my next stop was Curly Tale Books, specialising mainly in children’s and young adult literature, where I received a warm welcome from publisher and author, Jayne Baldwin. Here’s Jayne seated outside Curly Tale Books on what is affectionately known as ‘the Beltie bench’. Painted in black and white, the bench is a tribute to the iconic Belted Galloway cattle, which dot the surrounding countryside. To find out more about Jayne's writing, you can watch her recent television appearance on Border Life here.   

Next door we find the oldest bookstore in Wigtown, aptly named  The Bookshop. Claiming to be Scotland’s largest second hand bookstore, The Bookshop has no less than nine quirky rooms to investigate. This is the kind of heaven I used to dream of as a child; row upon row of books, leading ever deeper into the depths of the bookstore.

 After an hour or two browsing, I was ready for some coffee and cake, so made a welcome stop at the trendy, newly refurbished ReadingLasses Bookshop and café. Comfy sofas, Peggy Lee’s Fever playing in the background, over 8000 books on sale in the shop and another 10000 stored in the ‘Hut’ (an old WW2 telephone exchange), there was plenty to keep the most avid bookworm happy whilst enjoying their coffee. The thing that attracted me to the

ReadingLasses café though, was that their front room is dedicated to books ‘by and about women', proudly stocking directly from Persephone Books. A publishing house specialising in reprinting neglected fiction and non-fiction by mid-twentieth century women writers.

My only disappointment during my visit to Wigtown was that The Open Book, which offers an unusual holiday experience, welcoming guests from all over the world to stay and run a bookshop in the middle of Scotland’s book town, was closed on the day I visited… I supposed you've guessed, I’d love to try that some day!

Making new friends...

As well as the terrific selection of books Wigtown has to offer, it was the wonderful friendly welcome I received that made such fond holiday memories. Thankfully, Wigtown’s annual book festival, running from late September to early October, provides the perfect excuse to return.

Now, which other book towns might I explore...