Two Mill Street, a hundred metres back from the Quay, where the tide turns. Seventy years of books for the South Hams: literary fiction, the South West Coast Path collection, the children\'s room behind the counter, gift wrapping in thick kraft paper with a handwritten note inside.
Five rooms across one floor on Mill Street. Walk-in stock rotates weekly. If you\'re after a specific title, phone the counter on 01548 857233 before you make the trip in from Salcombe or the coast path. We can pull it off the shelf or order it for the next morning.
The contemporary literary list, the Booker shortlist as it lands, the long European backlist in translation, the South West writers (Daphne du Maurier, Helen Dunmore, Patrick Gale), a small modern classics shelf at adult eye level.
Walk-in stock rotates weeklyPicture books at little-person eye level, the early-reader shelves, the middle-grade adventure list, the YA paperback wall, plus the Tonies counter for the screen-free under-fives. In-store demonstrations on request.
Tonies demos by the counterThe National Trail Guides, the SWCP Association section guides, Paddy Dillon\'s Cicerone walking volumes, and the local tide-tables that gate the Bantham and Bigbury low-water crossings. The Kingsbridge stretch starts six miles south at Salcombe.
Maps and tide-tables in stockRachel Joyce\'s The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (set here in 2012). Anthony Trollope\'s Rachel Ray (set here in 1863). Devon history, Salcombe sailing, the estuary birds, the South Hams cookbook list. Locally bound, where we can find it.
Local-author signings each seasonModern history and biography, the long nature-writing list the South West does so well (Robert Macfarlane, Adam Nicolson, Helen Macdonald), popular science from the Royal Institution\'s annual list, the cookbook table, the gardening shelf.
Stock turns with the seasonThe shop\'s signature service. Any book bought in the shop or sent online comes wrapped in thick, good-quality paper, finished with a real piece of ribbon, with a handwritten note from the bookseller inside if you give us a line of text on the receipt.
Free · mention at the tillWalk-in stock rotates weekly · phone the counter on 01548 857233 if you\'re travelling in for a specific title.
The South West Coast Path runs from Minehead in Somerset, along the north Devon and Cornish coast, around Land\'s End, up through south Cornwall and south Devon, and finishes at South Haven Point in Dorset. The Kingsbridge stretch starts six miles south of the shop, at Salcombe.
We carry the full set of National Trail Guides published by Aurum and Macmillan, the SWCP Association\'s section guides (sold in aid of the Path itself), Paddy Dillon\'s two Cicerone walking volumes, the South West Lakes guides, and the local tide-tables that gate the Bantham and Bigbury low-water crossings.
The Harbour Bookshop has traded from Two Mill Street since 1954, seven decades behind a single shopfront, a hundred metres back from the Quay where the Kingsbridge Estuary turns. The shop sits at the head of one of the longest rias in southern England, a six-mile drowned river valley that runs south past Salcombe and out to the open Channel.
Kingsbridge has a quiet literary tradition. Anthony Trollope set his 1863 novel Rachel Ray here. Rachel Joyce set The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry here a hundred and fifty years later, in 2012, when the protagonist begins his six-hundred-mile walk from a Kingsbridge house. The shop sells both, alongside the modern South Hams writers and the long Devon-history shelf.
One pick a month, chosen by the booksellers and the regulars between them. A short note inside the cover from whoever picked it. Pickup in the shop, or posted free across the UK to club members.
If you belong to a book club anywhere in Devon, the discount runs across the year on whatever your group reads. Bring the club\'s name to the till, or sign up below and we\'ll add the discount to your account.
A new fiction title from the May list. We\'ll post the choice ahead of the first Saturday and write a paragraph on why it. The archive strip below holds the past picks.
Every book bought in the shop or sent online comes wrapped, free, in thick good-quality kraft paper, finished with a real piece of ribbon. If you give us a line of text at the till or in the notes field at checkout, a bookseller writes it on the card inside, in pen.
The wrap is part of the shop. We do it for the birthday delivery and the going-away present and the Christmas hardback equally. There is no premium tier, no extra charge, no afterthought.
Or come pick the book and the ribbon in the shop →
We sit at the head of the estuary on the spine of the old market town. The Quay car park, the bus station and the Saturday market on The Shambles are all within a five-minute walk. The South West Coast Path begins six miles south at Salcombe.
For anything not here, phone the shop on 01548 857233 or write to hello@harbourbookshop.co.uk. The booksellers are at the till during shop hours.
Two ways. One, bring the name of your book club to the till and we apply a year-round discount on whatever the group is reading. Two, sign up for the Harbour Book Club using the form on this page and we add the discount to your account. The monthly pick goes out first Saturday of the month, free UK postage included.
Yes. Choose "in-person pickup" in the cart and we'll set the book aside at the till for you. We hold the book for ten days from the email notification. No collection fee, no minimum order. Pickup hours follow the shop hours, Monday to Saturday 10:00 to 16:00.
Yes. The Tonies counter is by the children's room. We keep the Toniebox demonstration unit live during shop hours so the under-fives can listen to a sample before you buy. We carry the screen-free starter sets and the long character list, with stock notes on which figures we have in.
Yes. Add a note at checkout with the line of text you'd like inside the card and a bookseller writes it in pen before the wrap goes on. Thick kraft paper, real ribbon, handwritten note inside. There is no premium tier and no extra charge, gift wrap is part of the shop.
The shop trades Monday to Saturday, 10:00 to 16:00. Sundays we are closed in the usual run of the year. For bank holiday weekends and Christmas opening we post the dates on the homepage two weeks in advance. Please phone the shop on 01548 857233 if you're travelling in from out of town.
