Inside Topping & Company Booksellers, Edinburgh
Introducing Edinburgh’s largest bookshop!
Welcome to one of my all time favourite bookshops. Topping & Company are a small UK based bookshop chain that started in Ely, Cambridgeshire back in 2002, and has slowly spread across the country and all the way up to Scotland. Edinburgh is the youngest of their four branches, having only opened in late 2019, and it’s also their largest.
Stepping through the front door, the first thing you’ll see are rows of humungous floor to ceiling bookshelves, complete with sliding ladders like something straight out of a Disney movie. It was a great novelty for me to climb the ladders and peruse the books lining those top shelves. The building itself is fantastic, composed of three large floors, and housing more than 70,000 individual books. This is a bookshop that you can truly get lost in, and I spent hours roaming the shelves during my last visit.
One of the things that I love about Toppings, and I’m sure is one of their trademark features, is the fact that they serve free tea with little biscuits to every visitor. Throughout the shop there are soft places to perch with a pot of tea while mulling over your potential purchases. It’s not something that I’ve seen offered anywhere else, and I find it really inviting and endearing.
Shortly before opening Hugh Topping said: “It will be the largest independent bookshop to open in the country for decades. The new bookshop will be a striking addition to Edinburgh’s literary scene with handcrafted bookcases, Topping & Company’s signature rolling library ladders, and space for 70,000 titles on the shelves. It will offer an exceptional browsing experience, with complimentary pots of fresh tea and coffee and plenty of friendly, bookish advice.”
And you know what, he was so right!
How to get here
Toppings is based in Blenheim Square, Edinburgh, which is on the north eastern edge of the city centre and close to a number of bus stops – so very easy to find.
There are loads of other bookshops and things to do nearby
The closest bookshops include Typewrongers and McNaughtan's Bookshop, which are just a few minutes further north of Toppings.
Do go ahead and read the two blog posts that I wrote all about bookish Edinburgh, including a guide to the city’s bookshops! Book lovers will be in heaven in this beautiful, literary city.
Further reading
A Guide to Edinburgh’s Bookshops