Book publisher Persephone is to open a shop in part of the former premises of Pollocks Toy Museum on the corner of Scala Street and Whitfield Street in Fitzrovia.
A small, niche business which sells books by 20th century women writers, they are due to open at the site this autumn.
Currently Persephone has a shop in Bath but they stumbled upon the 18th century Fitzrovia building by chance and were attracted by the history of the location.
“But by chance we heard about a 1767 four-storey house behind Tottenham Court Road that had become available,” they announced this week.
“It’s in Fitzrovia, which is a fascinating area of London, as fascinating in its way as Bloomsbury, its neighbour.
“Many well-known artists and painters lived there over the centuries; the Omega Workshop, the source of several of our endpapers and much aesthetic inspiration, was nearby on Fitzroy Square, which was Virginia Woolf’s home for a few years too; in 1925 Marie Stopes opened the first ever birth control clinic round the corner; and the suffrage play A Pageant of Great Women by Cicely Hamilton, author of PB no. 1 William — an Englishman, premiered at the Scala Theatre next door in 1909.
“All in all, we felt that Persephone Books would fit in rather well.
“We are also delighted that our conservationist instincts can now combine with our love for twentieth-century women writers. This amazingly unwrecked eighteenth-century building does need a lot of work but what fun it will be restoring it.”
At the new shop customers will be able to browse all its titles and the publisher plans a book group and occasional events at lunchtime and in the early evening.
The existing shop at Bath would remain where the publishing and mail order business will continue to be run.
After Pollocks left the Scala Street and Whitfield Street premises the building — which was originally two separate buildings joined together — was separated into two buildings again with both put up for sale.
An events space and two-room hotel recently opened at 41 Whitfield Street after it was bought by a new owner.
Persephone will now move into the other half of the site at 1 Scala Street bringing with it a new lease of life to a much-loved building.
Pollocks Toy Museum left Fitzrovia at the end of 2022 but lives on with sites at Croydon and Leadenhall Market.
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