Waterstones London - Gower Street

Waterstones Gower Street is Europe's largest academic/specialist range bookshop, with an award-winning events programme.

Located in the heart of Bloomsbury, nestled between UCL, Birkbeck and SOAS, our Grade II listed building was designed by Charles Fitzroy Doll in 1908. The first bookshop on the site was the original Dillon's, opened by Una Dillon herself in a small area of the ground floor in 1956.

Today the bookshop occupies the entire five floor building. In the Basement, our art gallery hosts our award-winning programme of events, alongside regular shows by local artists. you’ll find our Second Hand Department containing our most recent rare acquisitions and collections of antique books. Our impressively stocked Art Department can also be found on the lower ground floor.

Our Ground Floor is home to our extensive History, Politics and Travel departments, as well as our Penguin Room, devoted entirely to the original green-, blue- and orange- spine Penguin Paperbacks. Our coffee shop, Dillons, serves Union coffee, a range of pastries and cakes from local bakeries, sandwiches and salads, as well as wine and beer if you’re after something a little stronger.

Our Children’s Department on First Floor has a wide-range of well-loved childhood classics and the best new titles, as well as a window-seat perfect for cosying up with a favourite storybook. An archway fashioned entirely from books leads you into our world class Education Department. You’ll also find Fiction of every genre on our first floor.

The Second and Third Floors are our dedicated academic floors, and aim to stock a comprehensive range of titles across numerous disciplines, including Philosophy, Theology, Science, Maths and Medicine (including stethoscopes, scrubs and skulls).

With freshly brewed filter coffee on every floor, plenty of nooks and crannies for studying and reading, a thriving events programme and five miles worth of new and second hand titles, Waterstones Gower Street is one of Europe’s most exciting bookshops.