Back in Bloomsbury

Photos: Old St Pancras churchyard. The stones piled around the tree were put there when the graveyard was moved to build St Pancras railway station. Apparently Thomas Hardy [the author] was working as an engineer at that time, and likely he had the undesirable task of doing this. Perhaps the experience had an influence, as he wrote so many tragic novels.

Weather fabulously warm today, so a great day to do a variety of bookish things. First, a visit to St Pancras Old Church, built 1820 for a free 1:15pm lunchtime concert of Schumann. It was lovely to study the Victorian stained glass, the Ionic colonnade in the altar, and the two-tier half balconies on both sides, while listening to an accomplished pianist. I had to duck out early to make it back to the British Library, check my coat and bag, and get a free ticket for their Thursday tour of the Conservation Centre. The Centre is on the first floor, in a building designed to maximize the use of indirect sunlight. This hour-long tour was hosted by two of the conservators, and walked the group through the Centre to see folks at work. First a demo by a man tipping C18th maps into a new manuscript binding. Then a look at a variety of letters and other mixed documents from Sir Richard Burton [The traveler, not the actor] being cleaned and bound, and a chat with another craftsman who was fixing a C19th leather binding, and finally a demo of gold leaf work on a leather book binding, done by a man who used a bunch of exquisitely specialized brass tools and made it look easy. As if. These people are very very skilled.

Further up Midland Rd, which runs between the BL and St Pancras Station is Old St Pancras Church, which started in Norman time. It is surrounded by a green and extravagantly leafy churchyard, and peaceful, despite the fact that the Eurostar trains whip by basically every hour. It's quite easy to pick out the one where poet Shelley first spotted his future wife, then 16-y-o Mary, [who later wrote Frankenstein!], who was visiting her mom's Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin's grave. The tomb is topped with a weathered broken urn, and it's exactly the sort of place where you'd expect a romantic poet to fall in love at first sight. Right out of central casting.

Despite stupidly twisting my left ankle on the cobblestones in the churchyard of Old St P, I hobbled off to visit two great bookstores: Judd Books, at 82 Marchmont St, which stocks remainders, and has loads of books on art and design, and later Persephone Books, at 59 Lamb's Conduit St, which specializes in reprints of novels, diaries and cookbooks from early to mid-C2oth by mainly women writers. Their books have plain grey covers with gorgeous patterned endpapers. If I wasn't planning a 7-week bike ride around France next month, I might have loaded up on more than a few of these beauties.

While at Judd's I picked up a pamphlet 'West Central': Antiquarian, Secondhand & Specialists Booksellers & Galleries 2011-2011 Bloomsbury & Charing Cross Road. Of the 19 stores listed, I've highlighted 5 more to visit: Jarndyce Antiquarian, Waterstone's[academic], Gosh! [graphic novels], The London Review Bookshop and Collinge & Clark [private press books].

Big fun.