Stop 4: John Sandoe Books - Daydreaming on the King’s Road

Opened in 1957 as a tiny bookshop on Backlands Terrace, opposite Duke of York Square, John Sandoe Books is a treasure trove for book-lovers. The shop has, over time, expanded over upper and lower floors of the eighteenth-century premises and to its adjacent neighbours, one of which was the veterinary practice caring for Winston Churchill’s dogs. It has a domestic feel, an old-world charm, with walls and staircases crammed full of books - books you really want to read - and window seats in which to do so. There’s an impressive selection of art, architecture and design books: we noticed it had the most recent copies of the Survey of London, which documents the buildings of London’s past and present, a must for architectural historians or those interested in our city’s-built environment. The shop and its booksellers have had some famous patrons over the years, notably the novelist Edna O’Brien, painter Lucien Freud, fashion designer Mary Quant and design entrepreneur Terence Conran who referred to it as ‘a bookworm’s dream… the perfect bookshop in which to browse where staff delight in making intelligent recommendations on books you have read and enjoyed’.