A HISTORIC independent bookshop in the Lake District is celebrating coming under a new ownership.

Grasmere’s beloved bookshop Sam Read passed into new ownership on October 24 to the hands of Will Smith and Polly Atkin, who will be the seventh generation at the helm of the bookshop.

They are taking over following the retirement of Elaine Nelson, who succeeded Margaret and Dan Hughes on their retirement in 2000.

Established in Grasmere in 1887, November 2023 will mark 128 years of continual business from the current premises in Broadgate House.

Will, who has worked at Sam Read’s since 2012, will be familiar to customers, both through his constant presence in the shop and his book reviews in Cumbria Life magazine and on BBC Radio Cumbria.

Will worked at Blackwell’s Nottingham Portland branch whilst studying for his PhD in Canadian literature.

He has been a judge for the Costa Book Awards and the Nature Chronicles Essay Prize.

In 2020, Will set up an online shop to reach Sam Read’s customers in Lockdown, and this continues to thrive.

In September 2023 Will was one of ten UK booksellers named in a shop floor honour roll by the Booksellers Association.

Originally from Suffolk, he began his bookselling life at Ottakar’s in Bury St. Edmunds.

Will always strives to continue the precedent Sam Read set, who was said to have both 'kept himself abreast of modern literature, and made a speciality of Lake country books'.

Will said: "With a shop with such a long legacy as Sam Read’s, there’s a responsibility to uphold, both in the service we offer our customers and the breadth and depth of books on our shelves. 

"Some of our customers remember Helen Read, Sam’s daughter, who followed on from her father to run the bookshop until 1950. It’s a unique shop which has added to the vibrancy of the village over generations and we see how much it means to our customers every day."

Writer Polly moved to the village in 2007 and soon became a fixture in Cumbria’s literary landscape. Attendees of Sam Read’s regular book events and members of Grasmere Book Group will know Polly and Will as overflowing with bookish enthusiasm, which they hope to bring to the shop and to readers new and familiar.

Polly said: "Our aim is to be good custodians of the shop and its history, keeping it alive and active for all readers, and taking it forward in the spirit it began."