Bookshop Spotlight: Sherlock & Pages
Luke Sherlock’s bookshop specialises in books about conservation and serves a “loyal, local customer base” in the picturesque town of Frome, Somerset.
2 Catherine Hill, Frome, Somerset, BA11 1BY
Two years ago, bookseller and author Luke Sherlock was at a crossroads. He had recently recovered from a period of “real physical debilitation” after returning from a trip to Europe during the searing summer of 2022. After seeing the wildfires engulfing Spain while attempting to complete the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, Sherlock experienced “a really intense bout of climate anxiety”, which manifested as a range of physical symptoms. At the time, he had been working with cities in China on climate change policies, but he emerged from this difficult phase ready for a career change.
“I loved my previous job, but I realised that there was more to my personality and that I needed to build a community around me,” he says. Having always loved books, Sherlock and his co-founder Agathe Cavicchioli decided to open Sherlock & Pages, a small independent bookshop in Frome, Somerset, specialising in books about conservation, history and the environment. Opening a bookshop felt like a “great risk” at the time but the booksellers have managed to build a “loyal, local customer base”. The people living in the town are “very creative and very in tune with the environment” and prioritise shopping locally instead of opting for the bigger retailers. “It’s almost hard to open a high street chain here, because the community is so vocal and passionate about where they choose to spend their money,” the owner tells me.
The shop is also frequented by people on a “literary pilgrimage”, passing through the town as they visit different bookshops up and down the country. The booksellers are always ready to speak to customers about the area and provide book and travel recommendations. “Books don’t just live on the shelves – there are ideas that live in the world, so we want to get people to care for the landscapes and the nature of these areas,” Sherlock says.
Everything from nature to historic architecture and medieval buildings is well within Sherlock’s area of expertise. As well as being a bookseller and an expert on environmental issues, he is also the author of Forgotten Churches: Exploring England’s Hidden Treasures (Frances Lincoln), which will be published in hardback on 20th March 2025. Featuring illustrations by Ioana Pioaru, the book brims with stories of historic churches scattered across the English countryside. “I talk about a church in a village called Mells, just above Frome – and Mells has a tremendous medieval church,” he explains. “There are so many stories about Pre-Raphaelite art, about the First World War, and also it has an amazing pub called The Talbot Inn, where I always recommend people go.”
My dream as a person is to have the most beautiful, soulful bookshop – surrounded by stories and community
By the end of January, more than 750 customers had pre-ordered Forgotten Churches through the bookshop. Some readers discovered the book through Instagram, where Sherlock has 187,000 followers, while books exploring the history of churches – like Andrew Ziminski’s Church Going (Profile Books) and Amy Jeffs’ Saints (riverrun) – are “a bit of a zeitgeist thing as well”. While this is the first time that the booksellers have accepted pre-orders, they will be trialling this with some other titles, including hedge-layer Paul Lamb’s Of Thorn & Briar, which will be published by Simon & Schuster UK on 3rd April 2025. Sherlock acknowledges that an independent bookshop is not likely to receive as many pre-orders as the bigger retailers, but he says that “it’s an interesting avenue for us to pick a few select books and promote them”.
The bookshop’s customers are searching for titles exploring “connection with nature, self-care, [and] reflection”. Naturally, Katherine May’s Wintering (Rider) and Robert Macfarlane’s The Old Ways (Penguin) are top choices, while the booksellers are also excited about Macfarlane’s new book, Is a River Alive? (Hamish Hamilton). Sherlock is also looking for titles by authors who are less well known, and his goal is to get those books into the hands of readers. An example of this is Gráinne Lyons’ Wild Atlantic Women (New Island Books), which he discovered while he was looking for books on the Wild Atlantic Way trail on the coast of Ireland. The booksellers selected this as their book of the year and Sherlock says they sold “hundreds and hundreds” of copies.
The booksellers are also working to build the digital side of the bookshop. Sherlock is experienced with social media and he hosts podcast-style interviews with authors and literary agents on YouTube. The booksellers also documented the renovation of the shop, which helped build “initial enthusiasm” before the team opened its doors to customers. “We’re really trying to be like a hub and a home,” he says. “Even though we’re a tiny shop, the ideas that we represent are really massive and the internet provides us with an audience that is unlimited.” Customers will often buy books online first and then visit the bookshop. “My dream as a person is to have the most beautiful, soulful bookshop – surrounded by stories and community – for authors and readers who share our values,” Sherlock explains. “For me, everything is about augmenting that physical reality, but the internet is a really important tool these days.”
