Bookbinding Studio in Pimlico: £110 Day Classes at Shepherds

If you want to learn bookbinding in central London rather than just buy a notebook, Shepherds is the place most binders will send you first. The shop sits at 30 Gillingham Street, London SW1V 1HU, a side street in Pimlico that the business itself describes as two minutes from Victoria Station. Inside are roughly 700 shelves of paper from around the world, a wall of bookcloths, leathers and tools, and a teaching table where complete beginners sew their first book in a single day.

Shepherds Bookbinders started selling fine papers, stationery and binding materials in 1988 from Rochester Row, aiming squarely at working bookbinders, artists and collectors. In the early 2000s it absorbed Falkiner Fine Papers, a respected London paper merchant, and the stock grew so much that the retail side moved to the larger Gillingham Street space. That merger is why the shop feels closer to a binder's supply room than a gift shop: the papers are chosen for strength and archival quality, not just pattern.

The bindery side of the business carries an even older name. Sangorski & Sutcliffe was founded in a Bloomsbury attic in 1901 by Francis Sangorski and George Sutcliffe, who had met at Douglas Cockerell's evening bookbinding class. Their jewelled binding of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, known as the Great Omar, went down with the Titanic in 1912. Shepherds bought the combined Sangorski & Sutcliffe and Zaehnsdorf firm from Asprey in 1998 and revived the name, so a beginner class here is taught under a very long shadow.

The entry point is the One Day Bookbinding Workshop, listed at £110 on the Shepherds website. It runs from 10:30 am to 4:30 pm at the Gillingham Street shop and is aimed at people who have never folded a signature. You make a single-section book from scratch, which means cutting boards, folding paper, sewing the text block and gluing the cover yourself. All materials are supplied, so you can arrive with nothing more than reading glasses if you need them.

Two sister courses sit at the same £110 price and the same daytime hours. Beginners Boxmaking teaches a lift-off lid box, finished as a pencil box covered in decorative paper, and is a good choice if you want to house a book rather than make one. The Japanese Stab Binding day covers the side-sewn style with visible stitching, and students leave with a small set of books in different stitch patterns. The tutor named on the current listings is Mylyn McColl.

One detail worth knowing is the discount card. Each workshop student receives a card for 15 percent off shop purchases on the day, so the end of class is the right moment to restock. Sensible first purchases are thread, PVA glue, a bone folder and a few sheets of decorated paper, enough to make a second book at home that evening.

First-time visitors tend to get lost in the paper. The useful approach is to think in jobs: endpapers, cover papers, text paper and board. Ask staff which sheets fold cleanly along the grain, because grain direction decides whether a finished book opens flat or fights you. The leather and cloth wall is worth a slow look even if you only bind in paper, simply to see the range of colours and finishes binders work with.

The shop also stocks binding manuals and history titles, which makes it easy to keep learning after a beginner day. If you are buying for someone else, a few sheets of marbled paper, a skein of linen thread and a small manual make a better gift than a finished notebook, because they invite the person to try the craft. Keep receipts flat in a folder, since the sheets bruise easily on the Tube home.

If you need a binder rather than a class, the commission work happens at Shepherds, Sangorski & Sutcliffe, 76 Rochester Row, London SW1P 1JU. The Shepherds contact page lists bespoke bookbinding, box making, paper conservation and book restoration there, open Monday to Friday by appointment and closed at weekends and on bank holidays. That appointment rule matters: do not walk in with a crumbling family Bible and expect a same-day quote. Email or phone the bindery first and bring the book to a booked slot.

Gillingham Street makes an easy anchor for an afternoon on foot. Walk north toward Victoria Street and the striped red brick of Westminster Cathedral appears within a few minutes, with its tall campanile and dark mosaic chapels inside. Heading the other way, the grid of white stucco terraces in Pimlico leads down toward the river and Tate Britain on Millbank, where the British collection makes a natural follow-up to a day spent thinking about paper, print and craft.

Rochester Row is only a short walk east of the shop, so a visit to the bindery and the shop can be joined into one loop on foot. Vincent Square, with its playing fields belonging to Westminster School, is a quiet green break between the two. If you are hungry after class, the streets around Victoria have plenty of quick lunch counters, and Pimlico's Tachbrook Street market is a short walk south.

Shop hours, taken from the Shepherds website: Monday to Friday 10 am to 6 pm, Saturday 10 am to 5 pm, closed on Sundays and bank holidays. Workshops are bookable online, and dates appear on each course listing. Each listing shows the remaining dates, so pick a date before you plan the rest of the day around it.

Wear clothes you do not mind getting a little glue on, and tie back long hair before you start working with the guillotine and cutting mats. The nearest stations are London Victoria, for mainline trains and the District, Circle and Victoria lines, and Pimlico on the Victoria line. Shepherds also runs intermediate and advanced courses, City and Guilds study and residential classes in Wiltshire, so a beginner day can be the first step in a longer path rather than a one-off.