![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/The_Osterley_Bookshop_Former_Rail_Station_London-1024x768.jpg\"\/)
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCredit: Jim Linwood via Wikimedia Commons \/ CC BY 2.0<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCredit: Jim Linwood via Wikimedia Commons \/ CC BY 2.0<\/p>\n
London certainly isn\u2019t thin on the ground when it comes to its quirky bookshop<\/strong> offering. There are plenty of peculiar places in the capital city<\/a> to head to if you fancy spending an afternoon perusing pages and adding an excessive number of titles to your ever-growing to-be-read pile. A barge floating on Regent\u2019s Canal<\/a>? Sure. A former high-security bank<\/a>? Why not? A disused Tube station<\/strong> that unintentionally became one of London\u2019s best-loved literary locales<\/strong>? Absolutely. Now, I know what you\u2019re thinking. How did it unintentionally become a bookshop<\/a>? Fear not, folks. I\u2019m about to tell you. But first, let me give you a little bit of a backstory.<\/p>\n Osterley & Spring Grove Tube station <\/p>\n The abandoned station<\/a> in which the bookshop in question can be found was originally called Osterley & Spring Grove<\/strong>. It opened in 1883 and was served by the District and Piccadilly Lines<\/strong> until 1934, when it somewhat had its thunder stolen by a newer and shinier station up the road (which just so happens to still be in use to this very day).<\/p>\n Osterley & Spring Grove<\/strong> station closed its doors that very same year. It was then left disused until World War II, when it served as temporary accommodation for soldiers and a machine gun emplacement. In the decades following WWII, the station building passed through various different hands, operating as a shop with a succession of owners. But in 1967, it was snapped up by a pair of artists (Tony and Pennie), and that\u2019s where the story of the bookshop<\/strong> begins.<\/p>\n The artistic owners originally bought the building with the intention of using it as a space for them to create art<\/strong>. The council, however, insisted that it remained a shop in some capacity, and so Tony and Pennie bought a load of second-hand books, and started to sell them. And that, my friends, is how a former Tube station ticket hall became one of London\u2019s most beloved second-hand bookshops<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Osterley Bookshop<\/strong> is still owned by the very same pair of artists, and it\u2019s become somewhat of a local landmark. The charming spot is a treasure trove for bookworms and bibliophiles, with shelves, stacks, and piles of books filling every nook and cranny of the space. There\u2019s an eclectic array<\/strong> of books available here, including some that date all the way back to the 1700s. And alongside the abundance of books, visitors can also have a rummage through an assortment of antiques and knick-knacks<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, it was announced that Osterley Bookshop<\/strong> would be permanently closing its doors. But thanks to an outpouring of local support, it\u2019s been confirmed that the beloved bookstore will continue to operate, just on a smaller scale. Whilst Osterley Bookshop is currently open daily, it will only be open on the weekends<\/a> from November<\/strong>. Better than not at all, hey?<\/p>\n \ud83d\udccdYou\u2019ll find Osterley Bookshop at 168A Thornbury Road, Osterley, Isleworth, TW7 4QE.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Jim Linwood via Wikimedia Commons \/ CC BY 2.0 London certainly isn\u2019t thin on the ground when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":435611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,393,4884,17009,257,53559,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-435610","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-local-trip","12":"tag-london","13":"tag-reading-literature","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115229951541575988","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"the](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/6089428_3378371d24_o.jpg\"\/)
Credit: Sumit via Flickr \/ CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Osterley Bookshop <\/p>\n![\"Boxes](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Copy-of-FACEBOOK-SPLIT-IMAGE-80.jpg\"\/)
Credit: Kake via Flickr \/ CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 (left) \/ Paul Robertson via Flickr \/ CC BY-ND 2.0 <\/p>\n