An accessible place

Thomas Baldwin learns more about the work of a long-standing Edinburgh Christian bookshop.

“A little bit of you dies,” admits Anna Pitt, of the moments when people pick up a book and take a photo of it, clearly intending to buy it later online.

Anna is the manager of Cornerstone, the non-denominational Christian bookshop in Edinburgh. Located in the Lower Terrace below St John’s Church on Princes Street, they offer what Anna describes as the broadest range of religious books ‘between here and London’, as well as cards, gifts and church supplies including candles, baptism certificates and cradle rolls, communion wafers and non-alcoholic wine.

“We are consistently told by people from all over that the breadth we have is the best they’ve ever seen,” says Anna, who has run the shop for nine years. “I had somebody call us from Wales who was looking for a specific book. He was 97.”

The shop began life as an SPCK outlet, and continued as an independent charity when that closed. It has now operated for 30 years, surviving lockdowns and a relocation while the Cornerstone Centre was built above the crypts.

They serve a mixture of Edinburgh regulars, tourists and occasional shoppers from all over the country.

This year, the launch of the new supplement to the Church of Scotland Hymnary has helped, in particular the stall they hold at the General Assembly every year. There is also a lot of interest in a couple of new books from Saint Andrew Press, Finding Our Voice by the Rev Neil Glover (also launched at the Assembly) and the forthcoming Scottish Religious Poetry.

However, the rise of online shopping, along with the widespread switch in reading habits to electronic devices, poses an existential threat. “It’s got a lot worse since Covid, because people’s habits changed,” Anna says, “And also with many people working from home, fewer of them are in town so it’s had quite a big effect on us.

“It’s entirely different from being able to pick up a book in a shop, feel it in your hands, open it and decide whether you like the writing.

“A lot of people come and look in a bookshop, but buy online, not making the connection that, if everyone does that, in future they won’t be able to go into a bookshop.”

She also warns that if the shop is lost they will lose the booksellers’ expertise, the ability to identify a dimly-remembered book from the barest details. “The colour that people most frequently remember is blue, even if it isn’t,” she says.

There are other, less tangible benefits to the physical shop. “A lot of people come in just for a chat. We have a lot of regulars that come in just to talk to somebody, and I think that’s important: that we are here and people know that we are not going to judge them.”

The shop is also an accessible place for people who might be curious about Christianity: “They might be a bit wary of going into a church, but they understand a shop.”

The message for anyone who values the shop is clearly ‘lose it or use it’, although Anna emphasises this does not come from a place of entitlement. “That’s not what we’re about. But we want to be here for people that want to use us. We want to be able to continue to do that.” ¤

www.cornerstonebooks.org.uk 0131 229 3776 edinburgh@cornerstonebooks.org.uk